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IN THE PRESS. 
 
 THE 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE: 
 
 PART II. 
 
 GLOSSOLOGY; 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE HISTORICAL RELATIONS OF LANGUAGES. 
 
 COMPREHENDING 
 
 1. The Etymology, or derivation, of particular words. 
 
 2. The different modes of their Construction in different languages. 
 
 3. The comparative similarities and dissimilarities of words and construction 
 
 in those languages. 
 
 4. The theoretical origin of languages in one or more sources. 
 
 5. The possibility and probability of forming from the existing languages, or 
 
 otherwise, an Universal Language. 
 
 Sik JOHN STODDART, Kxt., LL.D. 
 
ENCYCLOPEDIA METROPOLITAN: 
 
 System of Unihexml l^nolnletjge 
 
 OX A METHODICAL PLAX 
 
 PKOJECTED BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 
 
 SECOND EDITION, EEVISED. 
 
 jfet DiniBtmL 1(kn mmxw. 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE, 
 
 LONDON: 
 PUBLISHED BY JOHN JOSEPH GEIFFIN AND CO, 
 
 53 BAKER-STREET, PORTMAN SQUARE ', 
 
 AND EICHAED GRIFFIN AND CO., GLASGOW. 
 1849. 
 
^\ 
 
 5 ~ ; 
 
 CL^ 
 
 LONDON : PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET. 
 
3T 
 
 UX- 
 
 THE 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE; 
 
 COMPREHENDING 
 
 UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR, 
 
 OR THE PURE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE; 
 
 AND 
 
 GLOSSOLOGY, 
 
 OR THE HISTORICAL RELATIONS OF LANGUAGES. 
 
 By Sir JOHN STODDART, Knt., LL.D. 
 
 SECOND EDITION, 
 REVISED BY THE AUTHOR, AND EDITED BY 
 
 WILLIAM HAZLITT, Esq., 
 
 BAKKISTEE-AT-LA'W. 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 The present work was originally composed for the Encyclopaedia 
 Metropolitana, a publication which was designed to have been 
 produced under the editorial care of the late Samuel Taylor 
 Coleridge. That accomplished scholar, distinguished poet, and 
 profound metaphysician, was unfortunately prevented by ill 
 health, and other adverse circumstances, from carrying the 
 intended editorship into effect. He, however, not only devised 
 the comprehensive plan which was described in the Prospectus 
 of the Encyclopaedia, but furnished the original materials for a 
 general introduction, which his friend, my uncle, Sir John 
 Stoddart, undertook, at the desire of the proprietors, to arrange 
 for publication, in the form in which it eventually appeared. 
 
 My uncle was led, from this circumstance, to draw up an 
 article on Grammar, which, though hastily executed, in the 
 intervals of a laborious profession, was deemed by Mr. Cole- 
 ridge not unworthy to occupy a place in the Encyclopaedia. 
 The subject was one which had attracted the author's atten- 
 tion at a very early period. He was educated at the school in 
 the Close of Salisbury, an institution attached to the Cathedral, 
 and of which a Minor Canon, Dr. Skinner, was Master, and the 
 Rev. E. Coleridge (an elder brother of the poet), Under Master. 
 Grammar was then taught on the ancient plan of the once 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 famous William Lilly, whose Propria qua? maribus and As 
 in prcesenti English boys were, for centuries, compelled to 
 repeat by rote, without the slightest suspicion that they 
 involved anything like a rational principle. Fortunately, 
 however, for my uncle, his godfather, Mr. Benson Earle, was a 
 sound classical scholar, and had been a ward of the celebrated 
 James Harris, the author of Hermes. This book Mr. Earle put 
 into the hands of his godson, then about fourteen years of age, 
 and the young student, on opening it, 'felt as if his mental eye 
 had been couched, discovering with surprise that the lessons 
 which had appeared to him, of all his scholastic tasks, the driest 
 and most unmeaning, involved many profound speculations of 
 intellectual philosophy. Of course he was not yet in a capacity 
 to judge of the correctness of all Mr. Harris's theories; but 
 he saw enough to convince him that Hermes contained much 
 of that acute investigation, perspicuous explication, and ele- 
 gance of method for which it had been celebrated by Dr. Lowth. 
 His classical pursuits at Christchurch, Oxford, of which college 
 he was elected a Student, somewhat moderated, though they 
 did not wholly extinguish, his estimation of Mr. Harris's 
 work ; and the perusal of Hickes's Thesaurus, in the Bodleian 
 Library, showed him that the northern languages afforded a 
 new field for grammatical research. On his subsequent arrival 
 in London, to follow the study of the law, he found the literary 
 circles of the day much occupied with Mr. Home Tooke's Diver- 
 sions of Purley, a work which promised great results from the 
 cultivation of Gothic, Anglo-Saxon, and Old English etymolo- 
 gies. Falling into company with Mr. Porson, he consulted him 
 on its merits. The Professor said, that, on the first appearance 
 of Mr. Tooke's Letter to Dunning, he had been struck with 
 the originality of its views; but though the Diversions of 
 Purley (of which only the first volume had then appeared) 
 
PEEFACE. VTL 
 
 certainly contained some new and curious matter, lie did not 
 perceive that it effected much toward the development of the 
 principle set forth in the early pamphlet. This opinion con- 
 firmed my uncle in his resolution to investigate the subject for 
 himself. Having chosen the Ecclesiastical and Admiralty 
 Courts for the future scene of his professional exertions, he had 
 some time before him for miscellaneous study ; and as he had 
 devoted part of his leisure at Oxford to the Bodleian Library, 
 he employed much more in London among the Anglo-Saxon 
 and Old English manuscripts of the British Museum ; until he 
 was called to the Bar in Doctors' Commons, from which period 
 he was for several years too much occupied, first with his pro- 
 fessional duties and subsequently with political discussions, to 
 do more towards Philology than add an occasional article to the 
 large mass of notes which he had previously collected. Several 
 of these articles, however, threw no small light on the legal 
 institutions, as well of England as of other countries. For 
 instance, he traced the word cavere from its use in the Twelve 
 Tables, the earliest monument of Eoman Legislation, to the 
 Mediaeval cautio, the Italian cauzione, the Spanish caugion, the 
 French cautionnement, the Scotch cautioner, the English ca- 
 veat, and writ cautione admittenda, and numerous other legal 
 terms, ancient and modern, derived from the same source. So 
 he found the vades publicus (a security first given at Eome, as 
 Livy, Book iii. cap. 13, tells us, 460 years before the Christian 
 era) to agree in origin with the Italian vas, vadari, vadimo- 
 nium ; the Mediaeval vadium-mortuum, gadiator, contragagia- 
 mentum; the Italian gaggio, gaggio-morto, ingaggiare ; the 
 French gage, gages, engager ; the Scotch wad, wadset, wad- 
 setter ; the English wed, wedding, wedlock, gage, mortgage, 
 engagement, wages, wager, wager of law, wager of battle, 
 &c. &c. Again, in the Italian subastatore (an auctioneer), he 
 
VUl PEEFACE. 
 
 recognized the Prasco, to whose " most bitter voice " (as Cicero 
 says) the goods of the great Pompey were subjected sub hastd. 
 Many other such investigations kept alive, amidst the more 
 serious occupations of the law, Iris regard for the study of 
 language ; and it was under these circumstances that he was 
 applied to for that treatise on Grammar which appeared in the 
 Encyclopaedia Metropolitana. A few years afterwards he was 
 raised to the high station of Chief Justice of Malta; the 
 arduous duties of which, office absorbed, for many years, nearly 
 the whole of his time. At length, in 1839, he was relieved 
 from that important charge, and left to close a long life in the 
 otium cum dignitate which he still enjoys. 
 
 For the last ten years he has not been an inattentive 
 observer of the very valuable accessions which, this branch of 
 literature has received, not only on the Continent but in our 
 own country. Many ages elapsed before Philology ventured 
 beyond the classic circle of the Greek and Eoman tongues. 
 The languages of modern Europe were long thought unworthy 
 of the grammarian's attention ; and when they were first sub- 
 jected to rules, it was in the vain endeavour to make them 
 march only in the Greek or Roman step. Some zealous 
 Divines put in a claim for the supremacy of Hebrew, which 
 they essayed to prove was the language of our first parents ; 
 but this theory made little impression on the scholastic systems 
 then or since in use. CoXRAD Gesner had the merit of first 
 extending philological speculation very far beyond the classical 
 or judaical bounds. In 1555 appeared his Mithridates, a 
 treatise in Latin, " De differentiis linguarum turn veterum 
 turn quae hodie apud diversas nationes in toto orbe terrarum in 
 usu sunt.'" His notices of various languages, however, were, 
 as might be expected from the then limited knowledge of the 
 different countries, very slight, and led to little that was con- 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 elusive in point of principle. Nor can anything be more grati- 
 fying, in this branch of study, than to observe the vast progress 
 which had been made between the Mitliridates of Gesner, in 
 the 16th century, and the Mitliridates of Adelung, in the 
 19th. In the 16th century, too, GOROPIUS Becakus per- 
 ceived, though indistinctly, that affinity between the Indian 
 and Teutonic languages, which has, in our day, been so clearly 
 made out by Grimm, Bopp, Schlegel, Eichhoff, &c, and 
 recently in our own country by the very learned Dr. Bosworth, 
 in his Origin of the English, German, and Scandinavian 
 Languages and Nations. 
 
 To these, as well as to the ingenious speculations ol 
 Drs. Jamieson, Latham, and Pritchard, Messrs. Johnes, 
 Welsford, and others, my uncle has paid much attention, 
 and has from time to time availed himself of their learned 
 labours, in correcting and extending his own views, as well of 
 the philosophy as of the history of language. "When, therefore, 
 Messrs. Griffin, in the prosecution of their energetic purpose to 
 reproduce, in an improved shape, both as to matter and 
 form, the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, of which they had 
 become the proprietors, invited my uncle to revise his Treatise 
 on Grammar, desirous of doing full justice to the subject, he 
 resolved not simply on correcting the Treatise as originally 
 printed, and inserting such notes as had since occurred to him, 
 but on entirely reconstructing the work, and dividing the 
 purely Scientific part from the Historical. This, therefore, he 
 did; but as he felt that, at his advanced age, the labour of 
 editing the whole would be more than he could prudently 
 undertake, he devolved that task on me; placing at my dis- 
 posal all the materials which, in a long course of years, he had 
 collected, and giving me every facility for the fulfilment of my 
 humble share in the work. 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 From what lias been said, it is seen that the Treatise on the 
 Philosophy of Language, now presented to the public, 
 amounts, in manner, certainly, and, to a large extent, in 
 matter, to a new work, bringing up our knowledge on this 
 most important subject to the present day. 
 
 WILLIAM HAZLITT, 
 
 Chelsea, Nov., 1849. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction 1 
 
 PART I. UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR. 
 
 Chap. I. — Preliminary View of those Faculties of the Intellect 
 and Will on which the Science of Language 
 
 depends 5 
 
 Chap. II.— Of Sentences 24 
 
 Chap. III.— Of Words, as Parts of Speech .... 30 
 
 Chap. IV.— Of Nouns 47 
 
 Chap. V. — Of Nouns Substantive 53 
 
 Chap. VI. — Of Nouns Adjective 93 
 
 Chap. VII.— Of Participles 103 
 
 Chap. VIII.— Of Pronouns 108 
 
 Chap. IX.— Of Verbs 119 
 
 Chap. X.— Of Articles 157 
 
 Chap. XI.— Of Prepositions 168 
 
 Chap. XII.— Of Conjunctions 196 
 
 Chap. XIII.— Of Adverbs 221 
 
 Chap. XIV.— Of Interjections 266 
 
 Chap. XV.— Of Participles 278 
 
 Chap. XVI.— Of the Mechanism of Speech . . . .287 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 1. Iisr attempting to treat of any subject philosophically, it is advisable Method, 
 first to define the term or terms employed to designate that subject, 
 and then to explain the pliilosophical method of treating it which the 
 author intends to pursue. 
 
 2. The word " Language," which comes immediately to us from Language. 
 the French word langage, originates in the Latin lingua, " the 
 tongue ;" and therefore anciently signified only the use of the tongue 
 
 in speech. A just analogy, however, has extended its meaning to all 
 intentional modes of communicating the movements of the mind : 
 thus we use the expressions, " articulate language," " written lan- 
 guage," "the language of gesture," &c. ; for man is formed as well 
 internally, as externally, for the communication of thoughts and 
 feelings. He is urged to it by the necessity of receiving, and by the 
 desire of imparting, whatever is useful or pleasant. His wants and 
 wishes cannot be satisfied by individual power : his joys and sorrows 
 cannot be limited to individual emotion. The fountains of his wis- 
 dom and of his love spontaneously flow to fertilize the neighbouring 
 soil, and to augment the distant ocean. 
 
 3. But the thoughts and feelings of man, which belong to his 
 mental and spiritual nature, can only be communicated by means of 
 corporeal acts and objects — by gestures, sounds, characters more or 
 less expressive and permanent, instruments not merely useful, as 
 signs, for this particular purpose, but many times pleasing in them- 
 selves, or rendered so, by the long-continued operation of habit. 
 These, reason, the peculiar gift to man of his Creator, enables him to 
 select, to combine, to arrange ; and the result is a language. 
 
 4. Speech, the language of articulate sounds, is the most wonderful, Speech, 
 the most delightful of the arts which adorn and elevate our being. 
 
 It is also the rnpsLperfect* y<Jt enables us, as it were, to express things 
 beyond the reach of expression, the infinite range of existence, the 
 exquisite fineness of emotion, the intricate subtleties of thought. Of 
 such effect are those shadows of the soul, those living sounds, which 
 
 2. B 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Words, how 
 elective. 
 
 Speech, its 
 diversities. 
 
 Method of 
 study. 
 
 we call words ! Compared with them, how poor are all other monu- 
 ments of human power, or perseverance, or skill, or genius ! They 
 render the mere clown an artist ; nations immortal ; orators, poets, 
 philosophers, divine ! 
 
 5. Yet it is not to be supposed that spoken language, " with all 
 appliances and means to boot," can always fully convey to others the 
 conceptions or emotions of the speaker ; and much less that it always 
 does so. Joys beyond expression, and griefs too sad to vent themselves 
 in words, are of every day's occurrence. On the other hand, there are 
 persons, who habitually wrap up their thoughts in the language of 
 mystery, equivocation, or falsehood, for the very purpose, or at least 
 with the constant result, of misleading their hearers : and there are 
 words and phrases susceptible of so many different interpretations, 
 that nothing but an attentive comparison of them with the whole 
 context, or with all the concomitant circumstances, can enable any one 
 to comprehend their full force and effect. Dugald Stewart has well 
 observed that, in consulting Johnson's Dictionary, the reader may 
 meet with a multitude of words with five, six, or more significations 
 attached to each of them, and after all the pains that the lexicographer 
 has taken, may perhaps find no one of the definitions applicable to the 
 passage which he has in view ; and yet when he considers the whole 
 passage together he may have no difficulty whatever in comprehending 
 the intended sense of the particular word. This proves that the pow- 
 erful effects of speech are not owing to the mere signification of sepa- 
 rate Words, but to the activity of the Mind in seizing on the relations 
 which they bear to each other, and in giving scope to the thoughts and 
 feelings they are meant to excite. 
 
 6. Again, the dialects, or systems of speech adopted by various 
 races of men, in different ages and countries, have been, in many 
 respects, strikingly distinguishable. We may remark the copious 
 Arabic, the high-sounding Spanish, the broad Dutch r the voluble 
 French, the soft Italian : we may trace minute gradations from the 
 monosyllables of the Chinese, to the long paragraph words of the 
 Sanscrit ; or we may rise, still more gradually, in the scale of expres- 
 sion, from the barbarous muttering of a poor Esquimaux in his solitary 
 canoe, to the thunders of Athenian eloquence, and those delightful 
 strains of our own Shakspeare, which are " musical as is Apollo's 
 lute," and " a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets." Nor is this all : a 
 thousand collateral circumstances tend still further to diversify the 
 numerous spoken languages of the world. Not only does time produce 
 gradual progress, or sudden change in their forms ; but their effect is 
 endlessly modified by combination with other arts of expression, with 
 looks and actions, with sights and sounds. 
 
 7. In this labyrinth of interesting observations, what objects have 
 we to pursue ; what clue to guide us ? Shall we be content to learn 
 one or two dialects by rote ; to burthen the memory without exer- 
 cising the understanding ? Or, if we would rise above this, to a know- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 ledge of their construction, must we draw our general principles from 
 the minute comparison of those numberless particulars, which the 
 longest life would be too short even to contemplate, and which the 
 united wisdom of ages has never attempted to arrange ? The very 
 statement of these questions is a sufficient solution of them. They 
 indicate at once the necessity of assuming some comprehensive princi- 
 ples as the rule and basis of our farther inquiries. These first elements 
 of our reasoning must afterwards be followed oat into all their concrete 
 forms. The history of language must verify the science; but the 
 science must precede. 
 
 8. Obvious as is the distinction between science and history, be- The science 
 tween a principle and an event ; yet several writers on language, hfctor/of 
 especially within the last seventy or eighty years, and particularly in lan ^ ua s e - 
 England, have strangely confounded these two modes of knowledge. 
 Whether there be two parts of speech, or twenty, or any other number, 
 
 and how they are to be distinguished from each other, are questions 
 of science : whether a given word in one language be derived from 
 another given word in the same or a different language, or whether 
 both be derived from a common source, and through what tran- 
 sitions and changes of sound or meaning they have respectively 
 passed, are questions of history. The method which I propose to 
 pursue, is to treat of the former topics first, and afterwards of the 
 latter; but in like manner as it would not be easy to acquire a know- 
 ledge of Geometry (at least in its early stages) without the aid of 
 diagrams, so there might be some difficulty in making the first prin- 
 ciples of the science of Language intelligible, without occasional 
 reference to examples drawn from particular languages. 
 
 9. The science of Language has for some centuries been usually Grammar, 
 known by the name of Grammar, a word which, like the word 
 Language, we have borrowed from the French ; but which (like the 
 
 word Language also) is far removed from its original source. The 
 Greek word ypcupu), " I write," is connected with many Teutonic 
 words, signifying to cut into, or engrave; and was, no doubt, first 
 applied to engraving on stone. Signs or letters, hieroglypliical, sym- 
 bolical, or alphabetical, so engraved, were, according to a common 
 analogy in the Greek tongue, called ypa^xara, " things engraved," 
 and that term being afterwards extended to letters written, as well as 
 engraved, a knowledge of reading and writing letters in general was 
 called ypa/i/xa-tfc}), " the grammatical art." In the course of time, 
 teachers of reading and writing, in any one language, found it neces- 
 sary to lay down rules for reading and writing it well, which rules 
 were deemed the Grammatice, or Grammar, of that Language ; and 
 these again were found to result from certain common principles, 
 which constitute the science of Universal Grammar, and of which I 
 intend to speak in the first part of the following treatise. The rules 
 which form the Grammar of a particular language, in so far as they 
 differ from those of any other, are owing to accidental and temporary 
 
 b2 
 
4 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 circumstances, the investigation of which belongs rather to the history 
 than to the science of Language. Universal Grammar, on the con- 
 trary, disregarding that which is peculiar to the speech of this or that 
 individual, tribe, nation, or race, considers only what is common to 
 man in all ages and countries, both as to the arrangement of his 
 thoughts and feelings, with a view to their communication to others, 
 and also as to the bodily organs, or instruments, with which the 
 Almighty has furnished him, for the purpose of such communication. 
 Glossology. 10. The History of Language, in all its various bearings, may be 
 not improperly designated by the term Glossology, which I prefer to 
 Glottology, a word recently employed by some continental writers ; first, 
 because the former sounds to English ears less harsh ; and, secondly, 
 because it suits better with several words which we already possess, 
 such as Gloss, Glosser, Glossator, Glossographer, Glossography, all 
 derived from the common Greek word yXwcrara. (Attice, ykwrra), the 
 Tongue. Glossology, then, will form the subject of my second 
 treatise, comprehending, — 
 
 1. The Etymology, or derivation, of particular words. 
 
 2. The different modes of their Construction in different lan- 
 
 guages. 
 
 3. The comparative similarities and dissimilarities of words and 
 
 construction in those languages. 
 
 4. The theoretical origin of languages in one or more sources. 
 
 5. The possibility and probability of forming from the existing 
 
 languages, or otherwise, an Universal Language. 
 
UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PKELIMLNARY VIEW OF THOSE FACULTIES OF THE INTELLECT AND 
 WILL ON WHICH THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE DEPENDS. 
 
 11. In order to study Universal Grammar with effect, it is necessary 
 to take a preliminary view of those faculties of the intellect and will 
 on which the science of language depends. 
 
 12. In the mind of man the consciousness of simple existence is the Conscious- 
 source and necessary condition of all other powers ; as in language, ness * 
 the expression of that consciousness by the verb to be, is at the root of 
 
 all connected expression. 
 
 13. But we are conscious of different states of existence, in some 
 of which we act, and in others we are acted upon : and thus in lan- 
 guage, a verb is a word which signifies to do, or to suffer, as well as to 
 be. No language, indeed, ever was, or ever could be, formed without 
 such verbs ; but the case is different with regard to theories of lan- 
 guage, and systems of Grammar. These may be, and have been con- 
 structed, on the hypothesis, that the mind of man is a mere passive 
 recipient of mechanical impressions ; a something which may be im- 
 pelled like a foot-ball, but which cannot give to itself, or to anything 
 else, the slightest impulse beyond that which it has first received. 
 On such a question as this, the only appeal lies to the common sense 
 and daily experience of mankind ; and the result of that experience is 
 clearly attested by all languages, living and dead — a species of evidence 
 which is the less to be resisted, because it is not the result of any 
 common agreement. Every language in the world has grown up from 
 the necessities of those who have used it, and not from intention ; 
 from accident, and not from theory; and yet there is among them 
 an universal acquiescence in certain fundamental principles : these 
 principles, then, are indisputably founded on the common constitution 
 of the human mind. 
 
 14. The mind is, no doubt, passive in some respects. If I open Sensations 
 my eye to the light, I cannot choose but see ; if a sound strikes my Amotions, 
 ear, I cannot help hearing. These, and many like states of existence, 
 derived from the bodily organs, are called sensations ; there are other 
 states, in which we are more or less passive, derived from the mind, 
 
 and commonly called emotions. When we come to analyse these 
 latter, we shall easily discover that we are not so entirely passive in 
 their reception, as is often supposed: nevertheless, as we in both 
 cases " suffer," that is to say, are acted upon by external causes, we 
 
6 FACULTIES OF THE MIND [ CHAP - T - 
 
 Feeling, may not improperly include sensation and emotion as modes of the 
 passive principle, under the common name of feeling. The states of 
 sensation, which are agreeable to our nature, we properly call plea- 
 sure, those of an opposite kind we call pain ; and the same names are 
 naturally transferred to those emotions of the mind which seem analo- 
 gous to the respective sensations of the body. Thus the feeling of 
 guilt is called painful, and that of joy pleasant. The pleasurable 
 sensations and emotions, and their real or supposed causes, are all 
 called by the common name of good, and their opposites by that of 
 evil. The expression of feeling is what constitutes in language the 
 passive verb. 
 
 WiU - 15. As I have called the passive principle, feeling; so I call the 
 
 active principle will, or volition. It is this principle, which may truly 
 be called the life of the human mind ; it is this, which forms and 
 fashions the mind ; it is this, which impels and governs the man. The 
 conscious being, in his active state, has a power : he says, I do this or 
 that : and hence arises the active verb. Hence also arises the pronoun : 
 for the very idea of an act involves the idea of a cause ; and it has been 
 clearly enough shown by different writers, that if the idea of a cause did 
 not exist within the mind, it could never be suggested from without. 
 16. The will, in its growth, becomes a moral energy; that is, it 
 impels us to good, as good, and consequently to the greater good 
 rather than to the less. To choose the greater good is to do right, to 
 choose the less good is to do wrong. Let philosophers argue, as they 
 please, on liberty and necessity ; let them reconcile, as they can, those 
 high doctrines 
 
 Of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate, 
 Fix'd fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute ; 
 
 still the individual, from the first dawnings of reason, distinguishes 
 right from wrong, and knows that he is a cause of the one, or of the 
 other ; and feels that the power which he exercises as a cause, is a 
 talent for which he is responsible. Thus is formed Conscience, the 
 light and guide of life. I have not now to discuss at length the nature 
 and effects of this precious faculty : other and fitter occasions may be 
 found for that investigation ; but I cannot avoid noticing, that as the 
 ideas of right and wrong are seated not merely in the mind, but in the 
 first and elementary rudiments of the mind, it is a dangerous and fatal 
 error to represent them as contrivances of language, to say that 
 " Right is no other than the past participle of the Latin verb r eg ere," 
 and that " Wrong is merely the past tense of the verb to wring" 
 This is part of the history of words : it is no part of their philosophy. 
 Reason. 17. Neither will nor feeling has in itself any limit. The stream 
 of conscious being is continuous ; it exists alike amid the roar of 
 cannon, and in the soft breathing of the vernal air : in the deep, pro- 
 tracted meditation of a Newton, and in the brief glimpse that is 
 caught of 
 
 The snow that falls upon the river, 
 
 A moment white, then lost for ever. 
 
CHAP. I.J ON WHICH LANGUAGE DEPENDS. 7 
 
 What is it, then, that reduces the chaos of will and feeling first into 
 distinguishable elements, and then into individual masses ? It is the 
 forming and shaping power within us. It is the divine faculty, 
 " looking before and after," to which in its perfection we give the 
 name of reason. Reason holds, as it were, the balance between the 
 passive and active powers of the mind. It is fed and nourished by the 
 impressions of the one : it grows and moves by the energy of the 
 other. It has several stages or degrees, of which the first is Conception. 
 
 18. By conception, I mean that faculty which enables the mind to Conception, 
 apprehend one portion of existence, separately from all others. In other 
 words, the first act, or exercise of the reasoning power is to conceive 
 one object, or thing, as one. Hence arises in language the noun ; for 
 " the noun is the name of a thing." Here it is that many modern 
 writers on Grammar have erred. They seem to have considered no 
 such power in the mind to be necessary, and no such act to be per- 
 formed. They seem to have supposed that things, or objects, affected 
 the mind as such, by their own power ; and that the mind was quite 
 passive in this respect. When we come to examine this fundamental 
 part of their system, we find the greatest possible confusion of terms. 
 According to one, the first elements of thought are ideas, another calls 
 them objects, a third sensations, and so forth. If you ask what is 
 meant by these respective terms, you are still more bewildered. ' ' An 
 idea," says one, " is that which the mind is applied about whilst 
 thinking." A most vague and insignificant expression, then, it must 
 surely be; and yet it has been justly observed, that " vague and 
 insignificant forms of speech and abuse of language have so long 
 passed for mysteries of science ; and hard and misapplied words, with 
 little or no meaning, have by prescription such a right to be mistaken 
 for deep learning and height of speculation, that it will not be easy to 
 persuade either those who speak or those who hear them, that they 
 are but the covers of ignorance and hinderance of true knowledge." 
 All this is eminently true of the abuse and misapplication of the word 
 idea, which had a perfectly distinct and specific meaning, until it was 
 in an evil hour made " to stand for whatsoever is the object of the 
 understanding when a man thinks," or " whatever is meant by phan- 
 tasm, notion, species, or whatever it is which the mind can be 
 employed about in thinking." 
 
 19. Some of these ideas, it has been said, are simple, and some 
 complex. In the former the mind is passive, in the latter there is an 
 act of the mind combining several simple ideas into one complex one ; 
 but this distinction has been altogether denied, in more recent times ; 
 and we have been tcld, that " it is as improper to speak of a complex 
 idea, as it would be to call a constellation a complex star." Be these 
 ideas, however, simple or complex ; be they ideas of sensation, or ideas 
 of reflection ; ideas of mode, of substance, or of relation, the great dif- 
 ficulty is to understand in every case how each idea exists as one; how 
 it is bounded, limited, and set out in the mind; and this, I say, 
 
8 FACULTIES OF THE MIND [CHAP. I. 
 
 cannot be done, in any case, without an act of the mind, an exercise of 
 the peculiar faculty which I call conception. 
 
 objects. 20. What one set of writers say of ideas, another set say of 
 
 objects. " An object, in general," says Condillac, " is whatever is 
 presented to the senses, or to the mind." But still the question 
 returns : What constitutes one object ? What is meant by one pre- 
 sentation? Is it the sensation, or thought, which takes place in a 
 minute, in a second, or in any other portion of time ? Is it the 
 impression made on one sense, or on one part of the organ of that 
 sense ? Is it the sensation of warmth, for instance, experienced by 
 the whole body ; or that of light experienced by the whole eye ? 
 Is it the impression made on the retina by a house, by the door of the 
 house, by the panel of the door, or the pane of the window ? Is it the 
 altitude of the building, or the colour of the brick ? These questions 
 are endless, .and perfectly insoluble, if that which makes an object one 
 thing to the mind be not an act of the mind itself; but if it be an act 
 of the mind, then it follows, that with regard to the very first mate- 
 rials of our knowledge, the mind is not wholly passive, but exer- 
 cises some peculiar faculty ; which faculty I call conception. 
 
 Attention. 21. Mons. Condillac, indeed, admits that objects are only distin- 
 guished by remarking some one or other of them particularly ; and 
 this particular remarking he calls attention ; and attention, according 
 to him, is a simple faculty, acting only in one mode, and acting 
 necessarily from an external cause. Thus he states that the cause 
 of attention to sensible objects is an accidental direction of the organs ; 
 manifestly, therefore, according to him, the mind is no less passive 
 in attention than in sensation. 
 
 Conception. 22. I say, on the contrary, that in conception the mind acts. The 
 word " to conceive," in its origin, affords an easy explanation of the 
 mode of action. This word, which is derived from con and capio, 
 expresses the action by which I take up together a portion of our 
 sensations, as it were water, in some vessel adapted to contain a cer- 
 tain quantity ; for I have before observed that sensation is in itself 
 continuous, as an ocean, without shore or soundings : it does not divide 
 itself into separate portions, but is divided by the proper faculty of 
 the mind. The faculty of conception, like all other faculties, operates 
 by certain laws, in a certain direction, and in a certain manner ; for 
 such is its constitution. It cannot enable us to view things temporal 
 under the form of eternity, to conceive that a certain time occupies a 
 certain space ; or that an emotion belongs to the class of sensations ; 
 that jealousy, for instance, is red, or green, or blue, or smooth, or 
 rough, or square, or triangular. These laws, which regulate the 
 power of conceiving thoughts, it will be necessary for a while to con- 
 sider. 
 
 Space. 23. The first law that I shall notice, is that of extension. We are 
 
 so constituted, that we cannot conceive certain objects otherwise than 
 as occupying space. The faculty of conceiving them, therefore, pre- 
 
CHAP. I.] ON WHICH LANGUAGE DEPENDS. 9 
 
 supposes in the mind a sense of space ; but this sense has again its 
 necessary laws or modes of operation. In other words, we cannot 
 conceive space but as extending in length, and breadth, and thickness, 
 and bounded by points, and lines, and surfaces. It is by applying 
 these laws to certain objects, that we conceive them to be more or 
 less extended, and to possess different shapes and forms. To say that 
 we get the idea of space by the sense of sight or touch, is to con- 
 found our notions of sense, which imply an existence in space ; it is 
 to reverse the order of knowledge ; for if the mind were originally 
 unfurnished with a peculiar faculty, enabling, and indeed compelling 
 it to refer the sensations of sight and touch to some part of space, it 
 could no more acquire an idea of space from those sensations, than 
 from the emotions of gratitude or fear. This peculiar faculty, 
 applied to the sensations of sight and touch, of hearing, taste, and 
 smell, enables us to conceive our own bodily existence, and that of 
 the external world. According as we apply it more or less compre- 
 hensively, we conceive the existence of objects larger or more minute : 
 and according as we exercise it with more or less care and attention, 
 the external forms and disposition of objects appear to us more or 
 less accurately defined. It is not, therefore, the external object which 
 necessarily gives shape and form to the conception ; but the con- 
 ception, which by its own act embraces a given portion of space, and 
 thus gives shape and form to the external object. 
 
 24. Similar observations may be made on the law of duration, or Time. 
 time. To say that time is a complex idea gathered from reflection on 
 
 the train of other ideas, is to forget that the very notion of a train is 
 that of a succession in time, and therefore presupposes what it is 
 adduced to prove. There is nothing complex in the nature of time 
 or duration, but it is a form under which we are necessarily forced to 
 contemplate all things external to us, and some things within our- 
 selves. It is a law of our nature, and so far as regards its peculiar 
 objects, is inseparable from the human mind. But again, it is not 
 the lapse of any particular portion of time which necessarily limits 
 the duration of any object of our thoughts, for we can as easily think 
 and speak of a century as of a second : it is the mind which con- 
 ceives, as one object, the life of a man, or the gleam of the lightning, 
 a long year of toil, or a brief moment of delight. 
 
 25. By these laws of simple conception, whatever occupies a certain Number, 
 portion of time, or of space, or of both, may be considered as one thing, 
 
 or one thought ; but things or thoughts succeed each other incessantly, 
 and by dividing sensation into units, we have done no more than we 
 should do by dividing the ocean into drops, or the sand into grains. 
 A further law of conception succeeds. This faculty takes a more com- 
 plex form. We distinguish conceptions by their number ; and hence, 
 in all languages, the noun has a plural number as well as a singular, 
 in signification, and generally in form. But as the plural is derived 
 from the singular, so the power of conceiving many depends on the 
 
Identity. 
 
 Substantive 
 
 and 
 
 adjective. 
 
 10 FACULTIES OF THE MIND [CHAP. I. 
 
 power of conceiving one. It has been justly observed by Mr. Locke, 
 that "there is no idea more simple than that of unity, or one." — 
 " Every object our senses are employed about," says he, " every 
 idea in our understandings, every thought in our minds brings this 
 idea along with it." Now since this is the case, since no object, no 
 idea, no thought, ever is conceived in our minds without this impres- 
 sion of unity, why should we imagine that any can be so conceived ? 
 And if it cannot be conceived without such impression, then must we 
 consider the power by which that impression is produced as essential 
 to the conception. Before we can speak or think of anything, we 
 must first conceive it to be one. This one may be finite or infinite ; 
 that is, our conception may be perfect or imperfect — but still, in 
 order to become an element of reason, it must exist, as one, in the 
 mind. Even the conception of many exists in the mind as that of one 
 multitude ; and if that multitude be divided into distinct parts, so as 
 to be numerically reckoned, the number, whatever it may be, is still 
 contemplated as one number. Simple conception, indeed, could never 
 have advanced us beyond the notion of an unit or integer ; it is by 
 the aid of the other reasoning faculties, which I shall hereafter 
 notice, that we are enabled to form the complex conceptions of 
 number, and so to build up the whole science of Arithmetic. 
 
 26. Conceptions succeed each other indifferently, whether they are 
 like or unlike ; but the mind can only number them by classing 
 them, and can only class them by their similarity ; which similarity, 
 when complete, is in the contemplation of the mind Identity. Much 
 has been said of the source from whence we derive the notion of our 
 own personal identity. Surely if anything is essential, not only to 
 reason, but to feeling, to will, and even to consciousness, it is this 
 notion. When Descartes invented his famous reasoning, Cogito, ergo 
 sum, he clearly assumed his personal identity : and it is utterly im- 
 possible for a human being to reason or think at all, without such an 
 assumption. Even in madness, though the actual identity is often 
 confounded, though a man may fancy himself to be Alexander the 
 Great, or even to be the Almighty, he has before his mind an ima- 
 ginary identity : he thinks and acts as one being, and not as two : 
 and again, in dreams, when we sometimes see ourselves dead, or 
 alive, yet the self which we contemplate is a mere imaginary person- 
 age, with whom we have a strong sympathy, as we have with the 
 hero of a romance. The contemplator always seems to think and act 
 as a separate individual, and never loses the deep sense of identity. 
 
 27. If we next inquire into the different kinds of conception thus 
 formed, we shall find that the ancients were right in dividing them 
 into two, namely, substance and attribute; whence arise in language 
 the substantive and adjective. It must be remembered that we first 
 conceive, as one thing or one thought, a given portion of sensation, 
 and that those sensations in their simplest form are limited by the 
 laws of time and space ; but those laws are always operating on the 
 
CHAP. I.j ON WHICH LANGUAGE DEPENDS. 11 
 
 mind together, though not always with equal force. Sensations Substance, 
 which spread over a large extent of space may occupy a short time, 
 and those which continue for a long time may lie within very narrow 
 bounds of space. Many parts of space too may be contemplated in 
 one moment of time, and many portions of time may refer to the 
 same point of space. Our first notion of substance is personal, unless 
 we should prefer saying that the notion of substance is derived from 
 that of person ; which might perhaps be a more philosophical mode 
 of speaking ; though the former more immediately applies to the 
 common arrangements of grammarians. We refer all our states of 
 being to a substance called self, to which each man gives the name of 
 I: and thus I feel and know that I am the cause of all the active 
 states of my being. By an inevitable necessity of my nature I am 
 led to believe that there must be a cause or causes foreign to me of 
 all the impressions made on me without my own act. With respect 
 to myself, the conceptions which are limited by time and space give 
 me the notions of matter and motion as belonging to me ; those which 
 are not so limited give me the notion of mind. To external causes, 
 therefore, I attribute the same distinctions of character : and hence 
 the most general notion of external substance is that of a cause of the 
 impressions formed in me. But one cause often appears to be com- 
 mon to several different sensations. I therefore conclude that it is 
 one thing. I have, for instance, the sensations of heat, and light, and 
 colour, cotemporaneously, and this not once, but often : and I con- 
 clude, that there is some common cause of all these sensations, to 
 which cause I give the name of Fire. 
 
 28. The notion of material substance it is said is obscure ; it is no Material 
 otherwise obscure, than as a thinking and sentient being cannot sym- su s lce " 
 pathise with an unthinking and insentient one. Obscure as it is said 
 
 to be by philosophers, it is what the common bulk of mankind con- 
 sider as the very plainest and clearest of all their notions. A common 
 man is never troubled with any doubts of the existence of the table 
 or chair that he sees before him, any more than he is of his own per- 
 sonal identity. 
 
 29. Others again think, that they have a very clear notion of the Abstract 
 existence of these external objects or substances. They think that ldeas * 
 they can easily understand how the mind conceives the cause of a 
 particular sensation of heat, and a particular sensation of light, to 
 
 be one object, called fire, and contemplates that object as separate 
 from the sensations produced by it; but they cannot understand 
 how the mind should conceive as one thing, or thought, or one object 
 of contemplation, a notion common to all similar sensations. Yet it 
 is certain that men frequently use words expressive of such notions, 
 e. g. Gr. owtypoavvrj, Lat. temperantia, Eng. temperance — so, Gr. 
 XevKorng, Lat. albitudo, Eng. whiteness, &c. These notions are by 
 some writers called " abstract ideas," and supposed to be formed by a 
 process of generalisation, in which the mind, after contemplating several 
 
Abstract 
 
 ideas. 
 
 12 FACULTIES OF THP] MIND [CHAP. I. 
 
 particular objects, abstracts from each some one quality, in which they 
 all agree, and regards it as "a sort of Universal, or One Being in 
 Many," " ut universale quiddam, sive Ens unum in multis." But this 
 neither accords with the old signification of abstract, as distinguished 
 from concrete ; nor with the proper meaning of Idea : and the greater 
 part of the conceptions represented to be so formed, may be shown 
 to be produced in a totally different manner. Thus the conception of 
 a straight line, and the consequent conception of straightness in general, 
 is certainly not formed by abstracting it from various lines of various 
 inequality ; for if it were so, every man would have a different notion 
 of a straight line from every other man, and every man would go on 
 abstracting, and consequently improving his conception of straightness 
 as long as he lived. Whereas, in truths the idea of a straight line, 
 as soon as it is once steadily contemplated in the mind, is perfect, and 
 is equally so in all minds. This could not be the case if all minds 
 did not act by some general laws ; and since we are so constituted as 
 to be able to reflect on such laws, we may separate those reflections 
 from the general mass of consciousness, as easily as we can separate 
 a particular sensation from the same mass ; we may form of each, 
 a conception, a thought, as distinct from all other thoughts as one 
 external object is conceived to be separate from all other external 
 objects. 
 
 30. It is indeed objected, that these laws have no real existence ; 
 that there is no truth but that of opinion, and consequently, that 
 ' ' two persons may contradict each other, and yet both speak truth ; " 
 for such are the precise words of Mr. Home Tooke. (Vol. ii. p. 
 404.) The same objection may be made with much more force 
 against the existence of the external world ; for the learned and pious 
 Bishop Berkeley has fully shown, that we have no assurance of the 
 reality of matter or motion, but that which depends on our intui- 
 tive conception of their existence, as causes of the changes which we 
 experience in ourselves. But as we are utterly unable to believe, 
 that there is no truth in our own existence ; and, as we find it hard 
 to imagine, that this " goodly frame, the earth," this most " excellent 
 canopy, the air," this "brave o'erhanging firmament," this " majes- 
 tical roof fretted with golden fires," are all fictions and nonentities ; 
 so it is difficult for us to imagine, that truth and virtue, beauty and 
 wisdom, glory and happiness, are all empty names : we cannot well 
 believe that time and space are mere fictions of our own minds ; and 
 yet it is easier to believe this, than to conceive their existence ac- 
 cording to laws different from those which we actually experience ; 
 it is easier, for instance, to conceive that there is no real existence in 
 space, than that if it exists, a straight line in space is not the shortest 
 that can lie between two given points, or that a figure may be com- 
 pletely bounded by two straight lines, or that the radii of a circle are 
 unequal, or that the three angles of a right-lined triangle are greater 
 or less than two right angles. 
 
CHAP. I.J ON WHICH LANGUAGE DEPENDS. 13 
 
 31. Hence arises the distinction of subjective and objective truth. Subjective 
 The former we consider as existing in ourselves, the latter as existing truth. 
 
 in objects out of ourselves ; the truth of a mere opinion is subjective, 
 the truth of the fact to which that opinion relates is objective ; but if 
 all truth were merely subjective, each man's mind would be the only 
 universe, and it would be a solitary universe, without a creator, with- 
 out time, or space, or matter, or motion, or men, or angels, or 
 heaven, or earth, or virtue, or vice, or beginning, or ending — one 
 wild delusion without even a framer of the monstrous spell ! Now, 
 since it is utterly impossible to believe this, either deliberately or in- 
 stinctively, it follows that there is some objective truth, and that 
 what a man tryeth, troweth, or trusteth to (for these are all said to be 
 of the etymological family of the word truth) is in itself, more or less, 
 substantial and permanent. But if this be the case with our conception 
 of a stone, why not of a man ? And if of the motion of a stone, why 
 not of the thoughts of a man ? And if of thoughts bounded by the 
 laws of time and space, of number and identity, of good and evil, 
 why not of those laws themselves ? For the purposes of Grammar, 
 it is hardly necessary to press this argument ; for language has been 
 made by men, according to their instinctive opinions ; and certainly 
 the prevalent opinion has always been, that there is something which 
 the mind contemplates, when it reasons on man in general, as well as 
 when it reasons on Peter or John. It is probable that Sir Isaac 
 Newton had some object before his mind when he argued on light 
 and colours, as well as a lamp-lighter has, when he lights a lamp ; or 
 as a country lass has, when she buys a yard of blue or red ribbon at 
 a fair. 
 
 32. Conceptions are either particular, general, or universal. In Particular 
 strictness of speech nothing is particular, but that which occupies only concep ' IOnb • 
 one given portion of time, or of space, or of both. Thus the emotion 
 
 of fear at a certain moment of time ; the sensation of warmth at a 
 given moment, and in a certain part of the body ; or the sensation of 
 brightness in a particular part of the retina, are all particular concep- 
 tions ; and it is somewhat remarkable in language, that men (in early 
 ages, and before they had much turned their thoughts to reflection), 
 so entirely confounded the subjective and objective truth, both of sen- 
 sations and emotions, that they used the same word to denote both. 
 A man, for instance, would say indifferently, " I am hot" or " the 
 fire is hot." So, in common parlance, we say " the bird fears the 
 scarecrow ; " but Shakspeare uses the verb fears in a sense still preva- 
 lent in some parts of the country, 
 
 We must not make a scarecrow of the law, 
 Setting it up to fear the birds of prey. 
 
 33. Nor is it only a single sensation or emotion, of which we may 
 form a particular conception. We may certainly conceive as one 
 thing, a substance ; that is, many sensations or emotions united in 
 
14 
 
 FACULTIES OF THE MIND 
 
 Particular 
 conceptions. 
 
 General 
 conceptions. 
 
 Universal 
 conceptions. 
 
 [chap. t. 
 
 one common substratum ; whether that substratum be active as a 
 person, or passive as a thing ; for the notion of a person is founded 
 on self, as an active being, and that of a thing on the same self, as 
 passive. 
 
 34. These, I say, are the only conceptions which, in strictness of 
 speech, are absolutely particular ; but almost all writers call those 
 persons or things particular, which they consider to be identical : 
 thus Peter or John is said, perhaps, to be a particular individual, 
 though the name Peter, or John, may be given to an object which I 
 have only seen on some particular occasions, and only known to be 
 identical by reflection and comparison. In like manner, Pall Mall is 
 the name of a particular street, though consisting of many houses ; 
 and the Thames is a particular river, though flowing through several 
 counties. I dwell the more on this observation, because it shows 
 that those who strongly contend for the existence of nothing but par- 
 ticular objects, overlook the fact, that what they call particulars are 
 not such in strictness of speech ; and that, if the only business of 
 the mind were to receive impressions, we could never acquire 
 even what they call a particular idea or conception ; we could never 
 know that the John of to-day was the same person as the John of 
 yesterday. 
 
 35. This latter species of particulars, however, is the first element 
 of language. We employ signs, not to indicate a single impression, 
 but the same impression often repeated ; and these are of three kinds, 
 the simple sensation or simple quality producing it, which we call an 
 adjective ; the simple action, which we call a participle ; and the 
 person or substance in which the cause of sensation or of action 
 resides, which we call a substantive, or personal pronoun. 
 
 36. To these particulars we may add the notion of numbers, either 
 distinct or confused ; for the notion of many objects or many qualities 
 may still be viewed as a particular notion : and hence arise, not only 
 the plural of nouns, but the singulars which imply plurality, and are 
 commonly called nouns of multitude, as a troop, an army, a crowd. 
 
 37. I have shown that a particular conception is formed by the 
 mind separating and sorting its sensations and emotions according to 
 certain necessary laws ; and arranging them in certain forms more or 
 less distinct. Thus a certain form is that of Peter ; but the same 
 form applies nearly to John, the same nearly, though with some other 
 difference, to William; and so on. Now, when we contemplate 
 this form as possibly applicable to a variety of particulars, it consti- 
 tutes what may be called a general conception ; and these general 
 conceptions, duly ordered and arranged one within the other, form 
 genera and species ; and of these, more or less distinct, opinion is 
 chiefly formed. 
 
 38. But there is yet one higher step in the power of conception, 
 namely, the Universal. This is when we contemplate the form itself 
 in which our lower conceptions were cast, the law which governs it 
 
CHAP. I.J ON WHICH LANGUAGE DEPENDS. 15 
 
 Thus, there is a certain law by which the mind can only conceive a 
 straight line in a certain manner, namely, as length, and as partaking 
 in no degree of curvature, nor interrupted, nor distorted in any man- 
 ner whatsoever. Now, the first line that we actually conceive to be 
 straight, is not exactly so, yet it approaches to the form in the mind 
 sufficiently to make us give it the name of straight. The second, the 
 third, the fourth, and all successive lines, are perhaps equally defi- 
 cient ; and, by comparing them with each other, were there no 
 common standard to refer them to, we should never attain the know- 
 ledge of a simple straight line. All the lines which we actually see, 
 have breadth together with their length, all have some curvature or 
 irregularity ; but reflection shows us in the mind, a line, which is 
 merely length without breadth, and which lies evenly between its 
 points. Of this we are able to make a distinct conception, which, 
 when we have once attained to, we find it entirely independent of 
 time or space, always the same, necessarily true in all its relations, 
 equally applicable to all the particulars which fall under it — a law of 
 the mind — in short, what was alone and properly called by the 
 ancients, and ought still to be called — an idea. The higher, the 
 nobler, the purer these ideas are, the more difficult is it for man to 
 conceive them. They are never conceived without meditation and 
 effort ; and the deepest meditation, the highest stretch of our facul- 
 ties, leaves us lost in admiration and awe at the great overpowering 
 idea of our Almighty Father. 
 
 39. Conceptions present themselves to our minds, either as accom- Conceptions, 
 panied, or not accompanied, with a sense of objective reality. If panted to 
 they are not so accompanied, they are mere creatures of the imagi- the mmd " 
 nation : if they are so accompanied, then, if the object producing them 
 
 is past, they are conceptions of memory, and if yet to come, of expec- 
 tation ; but, when the object is present, the conception becomes a 
 perception, whether it be of an external thing, or of a general notion, 
 or of an idea. 
 
 40. I have hitherto spoken only of the faculty of conception, by Assertion: 
 which the mmd gives its thoughts then separate forms ; but we have tie ver ' 
 next to see these forms put into action, and rendered, as it were, living 
 
 and operative. Thoughts and opinions come to us in the mass ; and it 
 is by resolving them into their constituent parts that we ourselves 
 understand them ; but in order to communicate them to others, we 
 must pursue the contrary process ; we must state the parts, and assert 
 their union. Assertion, then, is the faculty which we have next to 
 consider : it is, as it were, the uniting and marrying together of two 
 thoughts, and pronouncing them to be one. Hence the word, which 
 expresses that function of the mind, is called, by some writers, the 
 copula, or bond ; but in common Grammars, the verb : and I rather 
 adopt the latter term, because the former may be apt to lead to the 
 erroneous conclusion, that the mind in assertion, passively contem- 
 plates two thoughts as united, whereas, it is active in declaring that 
 
16 FACULTIES OF THE MIND [CHAP. I. 
 
 union, ay it were, by its proper authority ; an authority, indeed, often 
 exercised hastily and amiss, but still the proper act of the mind itself. 
 Conception, then, forms nouns, including under that term substantives, 
 adjectives, and even pronouns and participles ; but these nouns lie dead 
 and inoperative to any purpose of reasoning, till they are vivified by 
 the verb, which pronounces their existence to be a truth. Thus John, 
 existing, good, loving, are all perfectly intelligible as conceptions of the 
 mind ; yet so long as they stand alone, we see not what use is to be 
 made of them in reasoning ; but let us introduce the verb, and a truth 
 immediately flows from the mind, whence possibly some etymologists 
 might derive pfjfxa, a verb, and reor, to think, from piiv, to flow. 
 Thus we say, John exists, John is good, John loves, and each of these 
 assertions at once takes the form of a truth, and becomes, as will be 
 hereafter shown, the germ and seed of otlier truths in the mind. 
 
 Affirmative 41. To assertion belong affirmation and negation. We assert, that 
 ' conceptions exist, or that they do not exist ; and the one of these 
 excludes the other. A thing cannot be, and not be at the same time ; 
 " such is the 7rpog uXXrjXa avracELfxeviov clvtiSeglq, which the Eleatic 
 Philosopher, in Plato's ' Sophist,' applies to the ideas of existence 
 and non-existence, and which accompanies every other idea as its 
 shadow, whether in physics, in intellect, or in morals ; for the finite 
 is necessarily opposed to the infinite, the false to the true, the evil to 
 the good," &c. And as these conceptions are the opposites of each 
 other, so affirming the one is denying the other. To say that black is 
 white, is therefore, in common parlance, to utter a gross and palpable 
 untruth. 
 
 Moods. 42. Neither affirmation nor negation, however, is always positive. 
 
 The mind contemplates some truths as actual, that is to say, it con- 
 ceives the subjective truth within itself to be certainly agreeing with 
 the objective truth in the nature of things, and therefore pronounces 
 unhesitatingly and distinctly upon its existence ; but of other sub- 
 jective truths it sees no objective counterpart, and therefore pronounces 
 them not actual, but hypothetical, that is probable, or merely possible. 
 On this distinction depend certain differences in the moods of verbs. 
 
 Tenses. 43, Again, we assert truths either with or without reference to the 
 
 time in which we speak. When we speak with such reference, as 
 we most frequently do when we speak of particulars, we are neces • 
 sarily compelled to distinguish the present from the past and future ; 
 and hence the origin of tenses; but when we assert anything of 
 ideas, we speak of a truth ever present, and therefore we use the 
 present tense in its most comprehensive import. Thus, when we say 
 John is good, we imply a possibility that he might at some other 
 time be bad ; and when we say John is writing, we imply a certainty 
 that he was not writing at some previous time, and will not be writing 
 at some future time ; but when we say two and two are four, we not 
 only assert a truth of to-day, or of this year, or of this century, but 
 a truth which must be ever present; since we cannot conceive it 
 
CHAP, I.] ON WHICH LANGUAGE DEPENDS. 17 
 
 ever to have beginning or ending. This remark is sufficient to show- 
 that those grammarians are in error, who make the signification of 
 time a necessary characteristic of the verb. 
 
 44. In whatever way we assert anything, the assertion is a de- ™f v ™? nd 
 daring of some truth, real or supposed ; it is a propounding of that assertion, 
 truth, or, in the language of logicians, it is the enunciating of a pro- 
 position. This is not done by a peculiar word, as for instance the 
 
 word be ; but by the force and effect of the word in construction; 
 for the word be, in some of its forms, as, to be, and being, is the mere 
 name of a conception ; and so are the words love, hate, walk, and in- 
 deed all others which may be used as verbs. Every verb, therefore, 
 includes a noun; or, as has been truly said, it is "a noun, and some- 
 thing more." What that "something more" is, has been much 
 disputed ; but it is clearly something w T hich shows the mind of man 
 to be active, not only in forming conceptions, but in uttering, pro- 
 pounding, predicating, declaring, asserting them to be truths. 
 
 45. The truth declared or asserted, regards either existence or Existence 
 action. If the former, we either assert it simply of a conception, as 
 
 " God exists;" or we assert it conjointly of two conceptions, which 
 are of a nature to exist together, as the substance with its attribute, 
 or the whole with all its parts, or the universal with the particular. 
 Thus we say " God is good," " two and two are four," " gratitude 
 is a virtue." If we assert an action, we must consider it either as 
 proceeding from its cause, or as received by its passive object, that is 
 to say, we must employ either the active or the passive verb ; and 
 whichever we employ primarily, we may (if such be the nature of 
 the action) add the other secondarily. There are, indeed, actions 
 which rest in their causes ; and the verbs expressing these, whether 
 active or passive, in construction, are really of the kind called neuter, 
 or intransitive, such as, " to rejoice," " to sing," and the like. 
 
 46. A truth asserted leads to a further truth, by that faculty, Conclusion, 
 which Shakspeare calls " discourse," from the ancient scholastic 
 
 and accurate term discursus. Hence that beautiful and philosophic 
 passage — 
 
 He that made us with such large discourse, 
 
 Looking before and after, gave us not 
 
 That capability and godlike reason 
 
 To rust in us unused. 
 
 The power of forming conceptions, and that of giving life and 
 animation to them by assertions, would leave human reason barren 
 and useless for the purposes for which it was conferred on mankind, 
 without the additional power of drawing from them conclusions. All 
 human beings exercise this last-mentioned power more or less dis- 
 tinctly ; but it is still matter of dispute among very able writers on 
 what principle its correct exercise is to be explained. Without enter- 
 ing into this discussion, I shall here assume that the most perfect form 
 oT reasoning or argument is that known by the name of Syllogism, 
 2 c 
 
Review. 
 
 Secondary 
 parts of 
 speech. 
 
 18 FACULTIES OF THE MIND [CHAT. I. 
 
 which may be shortly described as the inferring of a particular con- 
 ception from an universal or general : and even in the Enthymeme, 
 which is an imperfect syllogism, the universal or general, if not 
 expressed is understood. The inference may be made either from 
 positive, or from hypothetical premises. Hence arises a further expla- 
 nation of the use of moods in the verb. We assert a truth, not as 
 actual, but as possible, and the consequence which we deduce becomes 
 a contingency, necessarily following from the premises, but not neces- 
 sarily true, because the premises themselves are not necessarily so. 
 
 47. Thus have I enumerated the three faculties which go to the 
 making up of the reasoning power, and which are conception, asser- 
 tion, and conclusion, answering to the simplex apprehensio, judicium, 
 and discursus of the logicians. All continued exercise of reason re- 
 solves itself into a repeated exertion of these faculties ; and the only 
 difference is, that the truths produced by one conclusion serve to 
 enlarge or improve the conceptions which are employed in framing 
 other assertions and conclusions. 
 
 48. Hitherto I have had occasion to notice only those operations of 
 the mind, as giving birth to the primary parts of speech, the noun and 
 the verb, the substantive and the adjective, the pronoun and the parti- 
 ciple, which are in most cultivated languages distinguished from the 
 adverb, the conjunction, and the preposition, by being subject .. to 
 inflection or change of form, either in the beginning, the middle, or 
 the end of the words by which they are expressed. This latter cir- 
 cumstance, however, is merely accidental, and with respect to the 
 essential difference of the adverb, conjunction, and preposition, from 
 the other parts of speech before mentioned, I must repeat what I have 
 before stated, that the mind contemplates truths at first in the mass, 
 and then by reflection breaks down that mass into certain portions 
 which again are subdivisible ; so that, in asserting one truth, we cast 
 as it were a rapid glance over the subordinate branches of which it is 
 composed; as in viewing the whole beauty and proportion of the 
 Apollo Belvidere, we see at once the graceful turn of the head, the 
 animated advance of the arm, and the receding of the opposite foot ; 
 or as in contemplating the agonised frame of the Laocoon, the two 
 sons, with the folds of the serpents which twine around them, occupy 
 a secondary place in the imagination. When we come to develop 
 these secondary parts of the composition, we find in them the same 
 principles of unity and connexion, as in the general outline of the 
 whole group : and so it is with the subordinate parts of a sentence ; 
 which are, if we may use the expression, truths within truths, asser- 
 tions within assertions. Thus even the long and flowing sentences of 
 Milton's prose are each reducible either to an assertion, or at most to 
 a conclusion, as their ground-work ; but upon that ground-work are 
 built many other assertions, which are assumed, though not formally 
 stated as such. Each adverb, each conjunction, each preposition, 
 contains such subordinate assertion, and of course involves a con- 
 
CHAP. I.] OX WHICH LANGUAGE DEPENDS. 19 
 
 ception ; it is therefore true, that these parts of speech ultimately 
 resolve themselves into nouns and verbs — ultimately, I say, but in 
 the first glance and motion of the mind, as it were, they only appear 
 in their secondary character, as helps and expletives to the principal 
 words in the sentence. 
 
 49. The passions must not be overlooked, in considering the mind Operation of 
 
 , . -T , T ~ , , , T^ 3 the Passions. 
 
 in its relation to language. It often happens that an abruptness, a 
 transposition, and that which might be called an irregularity, if we 
 referred only to the operations of reason, become appropriate, and 
 even necessary forms of speech, when the mind is under the influence 
 of passion. The reasoning powers are then disturbed and imperfect : 
 the emotions become inordinate, the will obtains a preternatural force. 
 Hence arises the interjection, which some grammarians have refused to 
 reckon among the parts of speech ; but then refusal is vain : so long 
 as there are men with human passions and affections, there will be 
 interjections in their speech, words which stand out from the rest, 
 very significant of emotion though not of conception, defying the 
 ordinary rules of construction and arrangement, because such rules 
 bear reference principally to the power of reason, which is suspended 
 or superseded, whenever passion produces the animated and expres- 
 sive interjection. Passion, too, has given birth to what we commonly 
 (though not always very appropriately) call the imperative mood. 
 When Esau says, " Bless me, even me also, oh, my father !" we 
 feel the earnestness of the prayer, widely different as it is from a 
 command. Again, this same example shows us, that the vocative case 
 of the noun is of similar origin. " Oh, my father," is a strong ex- 
 pression of passion ; but it is totally dissevered in construction from 
 the enunciation of any truth, and has no immediate relation to any 
 operation of reason. Many other forms and modes of speech take 
 then character from passion ; as may be particularly observed of the 
 interrogative, so often the result of an eager desire to know the very 
 fact, which, it may be, we fear and tremble to assert. 
 
 50. It is to be observed, that all the exercises of all the human Conclusion, 
 faculties may be clear or obscure, distinct or confused. Our very 
 consciousness may be that of mere dotage, our feelings may be 
 blunted, our will wavering and undetermined, our conceptions vague, 
 
 our assertions doubtful, our conclusions uncertain, our passions a 
 chaos. It has been elsewhere said, that " the thousand nameless 
 affections, and vague opinions, and slight accidents which pass by us 
 ' like the idle wind,' are gradations in the ascent from nothingness to 
 infinity ; these dreams and shadows, and bubbles of our nature, are a 
 great part of its essence, and the chief portion of its harmony, and 
 gradually acquire strength and firmness ; and pass, by no perceptible 
 steps, into rooted habits and distinctive characteristics." Still the 
 channels in which the stream of mind flows, so long as it has any 
 current, remain always the same : the mental faculties which we 
 exercise, so long as we can exercise any, are subordinated to the same 
 
 g2 
 
20 FACULTIES OF THE MIND [CHAP. I. 
 
 laws, and display themselves in the same manner. Hence speech is, 
 in all nations, necessarily formed on the same principles ; and though 
 no one language was ever constructed artificially, yet it is astonishing 
 how distinctly all present the traces of the same mental powers, 
 operating, in the same manner, on materials so exceedingly different. 
 
 51. The general view thus taken of the human mind, appeared to 
 me to be indispensable toward a right understanding of the science of 
 language ; for as I consider language to be a signifying or showing 
 forth of the mind, it would have been impossible for me to have ren- 
 dered myself intelligible, in explaining the laws or modes of significa- 
 tion, had I not first stated what I understood to be the nature of 
 the thing signified. 
 Gradations 52. In different languages there are some things accidentally dif- 
 cience. f erent) an( j some things essentially the same. It has been owing to 
 accidental circumstances in the history of mankind, for instance, that 
 the name of the Universal Creator, among the Jews, was Jehovah ; 
 that it is in France Dieu, and in English God ; and that the Latin 
 words locum tenens came to be changed into the Italian word luogo- 
 tenente, the French word lieutenant, and the English word, which we 
 spell like the French, but pronounce leftenant. It is also by accident, 
 that the word luogotenente signifies, in some parts of Italy, the civil 
 magistrate of a small community ; that in France and England the 
 word lieutenant expresses a rank in the military and marine services ; 
 and that in Ireland it is applied to the viceroy, or chief representative 
 of the sovereign. On the other hand it is owing to causes which 
 exist more or less permanently in human nature, that in the sounds 
 uttered as language by an Esquimaux, a Hottentot, or a Chinese, 
 there are certain qualities common to them with the eloquent voices of 
 a Cicero or a Demosthenes. Though their articulations vary in many 
 respects, they all articulate ; and the nations that whistled like birds, 
 or hissed like serpents, never existed but in the inventions of the same 
 sort of travellers, as those who told of Cynocephali and Cyclops, and 
 of men who sheltered their whole body while they slept, by the shade 
 of one enormous foot. Cicero or Demosthenes, Plato or Newton, 
 Dante or Shakspeare, might express sublimer, bolder, clearer, lovelier 
 thoughts than men of a common stamp, but they could only express 
 them according to the laws by which every human mind must neces- 
 sarily act in conceiving and uttering thought. Here then we arrive at 
 Universal Grammar, at the pure science, which places this part of 
 knowledge on an immoveable basis, renders it demonstrable and 
 certain, and connects it with that truth, which is one and uniform 
 through all ages, and which rashness and ignorance perpetually assail, 
 but can never subdue. 
 Universal 53. It is necessary to keep in view the distinction between 
 
 Parttaluur an(i Universal Grammar, such as it is here described, and the Particular 
 crinSe^**" Grammars of different nations, ancient and modern. The word 
 Grammar, taken in its most comprehensive sense, may be briefly de- 
 
CHAP. I.] OX WHICH LANGUAGE DEPENDS. 21 
 
 fined, the science of the relations of language considered as significant ; 
 or more accurately, the science of the relations, which the constituent parts 
 of speech bear to each other in significant combination. ISTow, of those 
 relations in any particular language, for instance the English, some 
 are peculiar to that language, some are common to it with certain 
 other languages, but not with all, and some are common to all lan- 
 guages. Every particular Grammar then has to do with all these 
 three classes of relations ; but Universal Grammar with the last only. 
 It has been disputed whether Grammar be a science or an art. 
 Universal Grammar is a science, Particular Grammar is an art ; 
 though like all other arts its foundations must be laid in science ; and 
 the science on which it rests is Universal Grammar. 
 
 54. I am far from asserting that Universal Grammar has been Writers on 
 hitherto so successfully cultivated, as to leave to future investigators Grammar. 
 no hope of improving this science. Its principles have certainly been 
 nowhere laid down with that happy and lucid order, which has ren- 
 dered Euclid's Elements, for above two thousand years, a text-book 
 
 in geometry. Much, however, has been done. The ancient Greek 
 and Latin writers have traced all the principal paths of the labyrinth, 
 and elegant edifices of science have been raised in modern times by 
 such writers as Saxctitjs, Vossros, the writers of Port Royal, and 
 the learned and amiable Harris. These grammarians, as well as 
 those who in the middle ages cultivated the Arabic and its kindred 
 dialects, and those whose disquisitions on Indian Philology have been 
 laid open to us by recent discoveries, all agree in founding the science 
 of Grammar, on that of the mental operations. 
 
 55. Recent authors have rashly called in question the utility of these fallacies of 
 learned labours. It is not to be denied, that the many new sources writers. 
 of information opened to us in modern times, the numerous dialects, 
 barbarous and polished, which we have the means of studying, the 
 progress of the same language through many successive ages, which 
 
 we are enabled historically to trace, and, in short, the extended sphere 
 of our experimental investigations in language, may have served to 
 correct some errors and oversights even in our scientific views of Uni- 
 versal Grammar. But if the ancients failed (as they generally did fail) 
 in what regards the history of language, some modern writers have 
 much more lamentably failed in what regards its science. Instead of 
 founding language on the mind, they most preposterously found the 
 mind on language. " The business of the mind (says one) as far 
 as it concerns language, is very simple : it extends no further than to 
 receive impressions, that is, to have sensations, or feelings. What 
 are called its operations, are merely the operations of language." * 
 Another says : " We cannot distinguish our sensations, but by at- 
 taching to them signs which represent and characterise them. This 
 is what made Condillac say, that we cannot think at all without the 
 help of language. I repeat it, without signs there exists neither 
 * Diversions of Purler, vol. i. p. 70. 
 
22 FACULTIES OF THE MIND [CHAP. [. 
 
 thought, nor perhaps even, to speak properly, any true sensation. 
 In order to distinguish a sensation, we must compare it with a different 
 sensation : now their relation cannot be expressed in our mind, unless 
 by an artificial sign, since it is not a direct sensation." * 
 Origm of 56. It is somewhat difficult to deal seriously with phrases so inco- 
 
 herent. But let us ask, what can be meant by " the operations of 
 language ? " Every operation must have an operator ; and it is the 
 operator that causes the operation, and not the contrary. It is not 
 the amputation that causes the surgeon, but the surgeon that performs 
 the amputation. It is not the furrow that directs the ploughman ; 
 but the ploughman who guiding his plough gives shape to the furrow. 
 True it is, that every person who uses a word is not its inventor ; 
 but somebody must have invented it. True also it is, that an indi- 
 vidual may have many thoughts winch never would have entered his 
 mind, had they not been first excited in it by words : he might never 
 have thought of such a place as Timbuctoo, or such an animal as the 
 Ornithorhynchus had he not read or heard of them ; but the name 
 of the place or of the animal did not start into existence of itself. It 
 was imposed by some person, and for some reason existing in that 
 person's mind. 
 Sensations, 57. Again, it sounds absurd to say that we cannot distinguish 
 gushed? 11 " our sensations otherwise than by attaching signs to them. A burnt 
 child dreads the fire because he has felt the sensation of burning, and 
 not because somebody may have spoken of it in his hearing by the 
 word burnt, or brule, or brugiato. Still more absurd is it to say that 
 without a sign there exists neither sensation nor thought. And as to 
 the concluding assertion, that the relation between two sensations 
 cannot be expressed in the mind except by an artificial sign, it seems 
 to be altogether unintelligible. 
 Active opera 58. The chief ground of these inconsistencies is an incapacity or 
 Mind. ' unwillingness on the part, of their authors to view the human mind as 
 anything more than an inert mass, receiving impressions from external 
 objects, and returning them back, with some modification, perhaps, 
 from the structure of the mental machine, but purely mechanical ; 
 such, for instance, as the light of a candle might undergo, if thrown 
 on a reflector of many facets. But — 
 
 Cum ventum ad verum est, sensus, moresque repugnant. 
 
 The practical testimony of all human conduct is against this theory. 
 The fact that every human being has within him an active energy, 
 
 * " On ne distingue les sensations qu'en leur attachant des signes, qui les repre- 
 sented et les caracterisent. Voila ce qui fait dire a Coxdillac, qu'on ne pense 
 point sans le secours des langues. Je le repete, sans signes il n'existe ni pensee, ni 
 peutetre meme, a proprement parler, de veritable sensation. Pour distinguer une 
 sensation il faut la comparer avec une sensation diffe'rente : or, leur rapport ne peut 
 etre exprime' dans notre esprit que par un signe artificiel, puisque ce n'est pas une 
 sensation direct-" — Cabanis. Rapports du Physique et du Moral de l'Homme, 
 vol. i. p. 72. 
 
CHAP. I.] ON WHICH LANGUAGE DEPENDS. 23 
 
 a self-moving power, in short a mind governed by its own laws, and 
 burttiened with its own responsibilities, is a simple truth, obvious 
 alike to every unprejudiced individual, high and low, learned and 
 unlearned. 
 
 The dull swain 
 Treads on it daily with his clouted shoon ; 
 
 and it was the chosen theme of Socrates — 
 
 Whom, well-inspired, the Oracle pronounc'd 
 Wisest of men. 
 
 59. It is this active energy, this mind or spirit of man which gives Forms of 
 to speech its forms ; that is to say, the characteristics of noun, of verb, Itldby^e 
 and of those other constituent parts of speech which I have noticed as 
 essential tc a combined signification of any thought or feeling. The 
 matter of speech consists in the articulate sounds which serve to 
 express the different forms. These sounds have certain properties 
 common to the bodily organization of man in general, and others 
 which have been differently employed by different nations and com- 
 munities. The consideration of the former is necessary as a subordi- 
 nate part of Universal Grammar ; the latter belongs to particular 
 grammars, and consequently to the History of Language. 
 
( 24 ) 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OF SENTENCES. 
 
 Forms of 60. The forms of speech to which I have above adverted, chough we 
 
 needed by the employ them, with more or less accuracy, from the very dawn of our 
 mass o man- reasonj are f ar £. om fog^g obvious to the great mass of mankind. It 
 is a remarkable circumstance in the constitution of our nature, that 
 the most complex things are most familiar to us, that the most general 
 laws, by the very reason that they are most general, anc most con- 
 stantly in action, become habitual to us without our reflecting upon, 
 and consequently without our understanding them. We conform to 
 the complex and intricate laws of sight, we judge of distances and 
 magnitudes by the angles which objects subtend, and yet during a 
 great part of our lives we have not the most distant suspicbn that any 
 such things as angles exist, or that they are subtended on the retina ; 
 nay, ninety-nine men out of a hundred, and probably a much greater 
 proportion of mankind, exercise the power of vision throughout their 
 whole lives, without so much as wasting a thought on its laws. So 
 it is in regard to speech. All men, even the lowest, can speak their 
 mother-tongue ; yet how many of this multitude can neither write 
 nor read ; how many of those who read know nothing evea of the 
 grammar of their own language ; and how many who ha/e been 
 instructed so far, have never studied Universal Grammar ! The fact 
 is, that men at first regard the practice of speech, as the exercise of 
 some natural faculty, which proceeds spontaneously from tha wish 
 of communicating their thoughts and feelings. By and bj they 
 observe, that this faculty operates partly from sudden impulses, and 
 gives birth to expressions not easily to be analysed into any com- 
 ponent parts, as in the ejaculations of Philoctetes, which fill up many 
 lines of the Greek tragedy, representing his sufferings ; and that, on 
 the other hand, it is in far greater part the result of thought, and 
 distinguishable into portions separately intelligible. In analysing 
 these, we at once perceive that every discourse, however long, consists 
 of sentences ; and therefore, before I proceed to analyse speech any 
 further, it may be useful to notice the different kinds of sentences. 
 The sentence- 61. Our word sentence is from the Latin sententia, and that from 
 sentio to feel, to think, to judge ; whence in legal language a sentence 
 signified primarily the judgment formed in the judge's mind, and then 
 the same judgment pronounced by him. Grammatically, it answers 
 to the Greek term \6yog, as defined by Aristotle, cfxovrj (rvyderr) 
 arifiavTiKrj^ tjg evia fxip-}] /ca0' avra ar\fxaivei tl — " a complex significant 
 
CHAP. II.] OF SENTENCES. 25 
 
 sound, of which certain parts are significant by themselves ; "* which 
 definition, so far as it goes, is correct ; but for the fuller understand- 
 ing of the subject, I would suggest the following : "A sentence is a 
 number of words put together, and obtaining from their combination, 
 a particular power of enunciating some truth, real or supposed, abso- 
 lute or conditional, or else of expressing some distinct passion, together 
 with its object." From this definition, it would follow, that the 
 main distinction in classifying sentences should be into the enunciative, 
 and the passionate ; or, as Harris calls them, sentences of assertion, 
 and sentences of volition. Other writers have classed them somewhat 
 differently, but yet with reference to similar principles. Thus Am- 
 monius states that there are four kinds of sentences besides the 
 enunciative, namely, the interrogative, the optative, the deprecatory, 
 and the imperative ; but that in the enunciative alone is contained 
 truth or falsehood. 
 
 62. The enunciative sentence, like all others, obtains its power of ^l^ntence! 
 expressing fact or opinion, by the connection of the words of which 
 
 it is composed ; for Aristotle observes (what indeed is self-evident), 
 that " of those words which are spoken without connection, there is 
 no one either true or false ; as for instance, ' man ' — ' white ' — 
 ' runneth ' — ' conquereth.' " But let us put together only these two 
 words — 
 
 Jesus wept, 
 
 and we have recorded an historical fact most affecting in itself, and 
 furnishing abundant food for deep and interesting meditation. 
 When we read in Shakspeare — 
 
 The quality of mercy is not strained, 
 
 we immediately perceive the enunciation of a beautiful truth, which 
 is again presented under an expressive form to the imagination by the 
 following lines — 
 
 It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven 
 Upon the place beneath. 
 
 So when Milton says — 
 
 in the soul 
 
 Are many lesser faculties, which serve 
 Eeason, as chief, 
 
 a truth respecting our intellectual (as the former did our moral) 
 nature is distinctly asserted. 
 
 63. This kind of sentence may enumerate many particulars, all 
 bearing on one point of time, or referring to one general idea : such is 
 the following picturesque delineation of what presented itself to young 
 Orlando, when in pacing through the forest, chewing the cud of sweet 
 and bitter fancy, he threw his eye aside — 
 
 * Poetic, s. 34. 
 
26 OF SENTENCES. [CHAP. II. 
 
 Under an oak, whose boughs were moss'd with age, 
 
 And high top bald, of diy antiquity, 
 
 A wretched ragged man, o'ergrown with hair, 
 
 Lay sleeping on his back ; about his neck 
 
 A green and gilded snake had wreath'd itself, 
 
 Who, with her head, nimble in threats, approach'd 
 
 The opening of his mouth ; but suddenly 
 
 Seeing Orlando, it unlink'd itself, 
 
 And with indented glides, did slip away 
 
 Into a bush ; under which bush's shade 
 
 A lioness, with udders all drawn dry, 
 
 Lay couching, head on ground with cat-like watch, 
 
 When that the sleeping man should stir. 
 
 Such also is the following argumentative sentence m Bishop 
 Taylor's Sermon on the Duties of the Tongue, urging the Christian 
 office of administering consolation to the afflicted. : — 
 
 God hath given us speech, and the endearments of society, and pleasantness of 
 conversation, and powers of seasonable discourse, arguments to allay the sorrow bv 
 abating our apprehensions, and taking out the sting ; or telling the periods of 
 comfort ; or exciting hope ; or urging a precept, and reconciling our affections, 
 and reciting promises ; or telling stories of the Divine mercy ; or changing it into 
 duty ; or making the burden less by comparing it with greater, or by proving it to 
 be less than we deserve, and that it is so intended and may become the instrument 
 of virtue. 
 
 The interro- 64. Under the head of enunciative sentences I include the interro- 
 tence. gativc ; for the same fact which is simply asserted may be stated as 
 
 beyond the sphere of the speaker's knowledge, or as being doubted by 
 him, and desirable to be known. This is commonly effected in 
 language by a slight transposition of the words, sometimes by a mere 
 change of accentuation. As in Sterne's celebrated sermon, " We trust 
 that we have a good conscience." — " Trust that we have a good con- 
 science ? " Again, by transposing the lines above quoted, we make 
 them interrogations — 
 
 Is not the quality of mercy strained ? 
 Droppeth it as the gentle rain from heaven ? 
 
 But it is to be observed, that as some degree of emotion is implied 
 in the very nature of an interrogation, so it is often used by the poets, 
 orators, and others, to give life and animation to their style, although 
 no doubt exists in their mind or that of then hearers, and the matter 
 which is questioned in point of form, is meant to be asserted in point 
 of fact. Thus when the poet says — 
 
 who to dumb forgetfulness a prey, 
 
 This pleasing, anxious being e'er resign'd ? 
 
 he means positively to assert that no one ever quitted life with in- 
 difference. The humorous speech of Falstaff, when personating the 
 king, illustrates our observation — 
 
 Shall the blessed sun of heaven prove a micher, and eat blackberries ? A 
 question not to be asked. Shall the son of England prove a thief and take purses ? 
 A question to be asked." 
 
CHAP. II.] OF SENTENCES. 27 
 
 65. Again, the enunciative sentence may be conditional or con- T >e condi- 
 
 & , . . t i t . i i . tional sen- 
 
 tingent ; that is, it may be placed m dependence on, or in counter- tence. 
 balance against, some other truth ; as in Macbeth — 
 
 If it were done, when 'tis done, then t'were wel 
 It were done quickly. 
 
 Or in Hamlet — 
 
 ■ Duller should'st thou be than the fat weed 
 
 That rots itself at ease by Lethe's stream, 
 Wouldst thou not stir in this.' 
 
 Or again in Macbeth, where the contingency takes place in spite of 
 obstacles which might be supposed capable of preventing it — 
 
 Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane, 
 And thou oppos'd being of no woman born, 
 Yet will I try the last. 
 
 66. In all these and similar instances, the enunciation of a truth The passion 
 is the immediate object in view : but another class of sentences owe ate sentence * 
 their form and construction solely to some passion, of which they 
 indicate the object. And it is to be observed, that the indication of 
 
 an object of passion is essential to the constitutmg such sentences as 
 these. Thus, when the Nurse, in Komeo and Juliet, on finding her 
 young lady dead, cries and laments vociferously, and the parents 
 enter, asking, " What noise is here? What is the matter?" Her 
 answers, " lamentable day ! " " heavy day," are not sentences; 
 for, though they plainly show the grief with which she is agitated, 
 they do not at all express the cause or object of that grief. But 
 when Hamlet cries — 
 
 ! that this too, too solid flesh would melt, 
 Thaw and resolve itself into a dew ! 
 
 we perceive a distinct expression of the wish to be delivered of life, 
 as burthensome to him. The sentence is as complete and grammatical, 
 and much more poetic, than if the place of the interjection O ! had 
 been supplied by a verb ; for instead of an impassioned and beautiful 
 line, it would have been perfectly absurd, if the poet had said — 
 
 1 icish that this too solid flesh would melt ! 
 
 67. We may observe, that these passionate sentences, combine 
 quite as readily as the enunciative with dependent sentences, as 
 " O ! that I had wings like a dove ! Then would I flee away and 
 be at rest ; " which implies (but more forcibly) the same fact as the 
 sentence, " If I had wings like a dove, I would flee away," &c. 
 
 68. Sentences of the passionate kind either express a passive 
 feeling, as admiration and its contrary, or an active volition, as desire 
 and its contrary. Of the former kind, is that passage of the apostle, 
 " O ! the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge 
 of God ! " and the line of Milton, comparing the receptacle of the 
 fallen Spirits with their former happy seat — 
 
 ! how unlike the place from whence they fell ! 
 
28 OF SENTENCES. [CHAP. II. 
 
 It^slntenc"". Those sentences which express desire and aversion are commonly 
 expressed by the mood called imperative ; but they as often imply 
 humble supplication or mild intreaty, as authoritative command; 
 and in such cases are called by some precative. Thus the poet describes 
 Adam gently calling on Eve to awake — 
 
 He, with voice 
 Mild as when Zephyrus on Flora breathes, 
 Her hand soft touching whisper'd thus : Awake, 
 My fairest, my espous'd, my latest found, 
 Heav'n's last, best gift, my ever new delight, 
 Awake ! 
 
 And again, when our first parents offer up in lowly adoration their 
 morning orisons, they say — 
 
 Hail, universal Lord, be bounteous still 
 To give us only good ! 
 
 But these emotions are widely different from others, expressed in 
 the same form of sentence : as when King Henry says to Hotspur — 
 
 Send us your prisoners by the speediest means, 
 Or you shall hear from us in such a sort 
 As may displease you. 
 
 Or when Juliet exclaims — 
 
 Gallop apace, ye fi'ry-footed steeds, 
 To Pncebus' mansion ! 
 
 Or when Macbeth cries to the ghost of Banquo — 
 
 Avaunt! and quit my sight ! Let the earth hide thee ! 
 
 69. Passionate sentences are generally short ; but their repetition 
 in continuous succession is often a beauty of the highest kind, es- 
 pecially in poetry. The mighty Master of Poetry, inimitable in this, 
 as in all the vast variety of styles which he adopts, has given an 
 instance of the passionate iteration of feeling, in one of his earliest 
 productions, the " Rape of Lucrece." After a beautiful enunciation 
 of the powerful effects of time — (" Time's glory is to calm contending 
 kings," &c. &c) — Lucretia calls on Time to heap evils on the head 
 of her ravisher — 
 
 Disturb his hours of rest with restless trances ! 
 
 Afflict him in his bed with bedrid groans ! 
 
 Let there bechance him, pitiful mischances, 
 
 To make him moan, but pity not his moans ! 
 
 Stone him with harden' d hearts, harder than stones ! 
 And let mild women to him lose their mildness, 
 Wilder to him than tigers in their wildness ! 
 
 Let him have time, to tear his curled hair ! 
 
 Let him have time, against himself to rave ! 
 
 Let him have time, of Time's help to despair ! 
 
 Let him have time, a beggar's oris to crave ; 
 And time to see one that by alms doth live, 
 Disdain to him disdained scraps to give ! 
 
CHAP. II.] OF SENTENCES. 29 
 
 Let him have time, to see his friends his foes, 
 
 And merry fools to mock at him resort ! 
 
 Let him have time, to mark how slow time goes 
 
 In time of sorrow ; and how swift and short, 
 
 His time of folly, and his time of sport ! 
 And ever let his unrecalling crime 
 Have time to wail th' abusing of his time ! 
 
 The passion, which would dictate this terrific variety of imagery 
 in its maledictions, might well arm the injured woman (Roman as she 
 was) to the act of self-sacrifice so celebrated in history. 
 
 70. The examples hitherto given are of perfect sentences ; but imperfect 
 instances often occur in which a sentence is manifestly left imperfect, 
 and that with great beauty, as in the well-known line of Virgil — 
 Quos ego — sed motos praestat componere fmctus. 
 
 And so Satan first addresses Beelzebub, in the opening of the 
 Paradise Lost — 
 
 If thou be'st he — but oh ! how chang'd, how fallen ! 
 In both these cases, the words, though not in themselves fully and 
 clearly expressive of the thought which we may suppose to be in the 
 speaker's mind, are yet not wholly unconnected, and, therefore, show 
 at once that they are parts of sentences which, indeed, it would be 
 easy for the reader to fill up in his own imagination. 
 
( 30 ) 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OF WORDS, AS PARTS OF SPEECH. 
 
 Words. 
 
 Composition 
 of words. 
 
 71. The next step in the grammatical analysis of Speech is to resolve 
 Sentences into their significant parts, namely Words ; for most per- 
 sons will readily grant that a sentence consists of words ; and that 
 every word has some separate force or meaning, as so used. The 
 origin of our term " Word" is lost in the obscurity of ages. It comes 
 to us from a Teutonic source, and appears in many dialects, as 
 in Mceso-Gothic, Waurd; Anglo-Saxon, Word; Dutch, Woord; 
 Frankish and Alamannic, Wort; Danish, Swedish, and Icelandic, 
 Ord, whence it would seem not improbably to be allied to Oro, 
 which in old Latin was to speak. Be this as it may, in its gram- 
 matical import, as it will here be used, Word answers to the Latin 
 Dictio, which that admirable grammarian Priscian defines " the 
 least part of a constructed (that is, orderly-composed) sentence; 
 understanding a part to be such in relation to the meaning of the whole 
 sentence." 
 
 72. Words themselves may, indeed, generally be subdivided as to 
 sound into syllables, and these syllables into letters. But where a 
 word is capable of such subdivision, the syllables or letters, though 
 they may signify something separately in other sentences, are not 
 separately significant with relation to the sentence in which the word is 
 used. Thus, to take Priscian's instance, in Virgil's sentence, — 
 
 Fama vires acquirit eundo ; 
 
 the two syllables vi and res form parts of the word vires ; but they 
 are only parts of its sound ; they have no separate signification with 
 relation to the sentence here quoted. Yet, in other sentences, each of 
 these syllables may form a word, if it be significant, in relation to the 
 sentence in which it is used ; as — 
 
 volat vi fervidus axis 
 
 And elsewhere — 
 
 Res dura et regni novitas me talia cogunt 
 Moliri. 
 
 So the English term handsome is to be taken as one word in a sen- 
 tence, in relation to which it has one signification, e.g., comely, beau- 
 tiful, or liberal ; but in another sentence, where hand signifies a 
 portion of the human body, and some an indefinite quantity or num- 
 ber, it forms two words. The same may sometimes be said even of 
 a single letter ; for instance, the letter i, in most words, has no sepa- 
 
CHAI\ III.] OF WORDS, AS PARTS OF SPEECH. 31 
 
 rate signification ; but when it stands alone, as a significant part of a 
 sentence, it is then a word, as in the Latin — 
 
 /, decus, i nostrum, melioribus utere fatis ! 
 
 And so in the English — 
 
 always / am Caesar. 
 
 73. " If, therefore, all speech," says Harris, " whether in prose or Words, the 
 
 ,-. r ■ ,. J t r , smallest piirts 
 
 verse, every whole, every section, every paragraph, every sentence, of speech, 
 imply a certain meaning, divisible into other meanings, but words 
 imply a meaning which is not so divisible, it follows that words will 
 be the smallest parts of speech ; inasmuch as nothing less has any 
 meaning at all." This argument would have been more accurately 
 stated had the accomplished author inserted, after " a meaning not so 
 divisible," the clause above employed, viz., " with relation to the 
 sentences in which they are used." The want of some such explana- 
 tory cause has led to much misapprehension of Mr. Harris's whole 
 doctrine. It has been assumed that he meant by signification some- 
 thing positive ; that a certain sound must be under all circumstances 
 significant, or under all circumstances destitute of signification ; 
 whereas the science of Grammar is relative; the signification of a 
 sentence, be it a simple or a complex, a long or a short one, depends 
 on the mutual relation of all its parts ; and the signification of one 
 word in a sentence depends on its relation to another in the same 
 sentence. In this sense, we must understand the proposition that 
 words are the least parts of speech capable of grammatical classifi- 
 cation; how they are to be classed remains to be considered, for 
 some principles of classification are better than others. It is not suf- 
 ficient that we comprehend all our notions on a given subject imder 
 certain heads; but we must be prepared to show why we choose 
 those heads rather than others. 
 
 74. Take, for instance, Shakspeare's well-known lines — 
 
 The man that hath no music in himself, 
 
 Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds, 
 
 Is fit for treasons 
 
 Here we know that various grammatical writers call the word the Parts of 
 
 SD66Cu.a 
 
 an article ; man, music, concord, and sounds, substantives, or nouns 
 substantive ; no, sweet, and fit, adjectives, or nouns adjective ; that, 
 and himself, pronouns ; hath and is, verbs ; moved, a participle ; not, 
 an adverb ; and, a conjunction ; in, with, and for, prepositions. 
 
 75. The first question that occurs to us is, whether these classes 
 themselves are all recognised in all languages, and by all grammarians ? 
 And a very little experience will show that they are not. The same 
 thing has happened in Grammar, which has happened in all other 
 sciences. Some authors have divided speech into two parts, some 
 into three, four, and so on to ten or twelve. Others again have made 
 their division depend on the supposed utility of words; others on 
 
32 OF WORDS, AS PARTS OF SPEECH. [CHAP. III. 
 
 Seech/ tneir variat i° n '> others on the external objects to which they refer, 
 and others on the mental operations which they express. On this 
 point, it is worth while to hear what Quintilian says, in the fourth 
 chapter of his first book — "On the number of the parts of speech, 
 there is but little agreement. For the ancients, amongst whom were 
 Aristotle and Theodectes, laid it down, that there were only verbs 
 and nouns, and combinatives (convinctiones) ; intimating that there was 
 in verbs the force of speech, in nouns the matter (because what we 
 speak is one thing, and what we speak about is another), and that 
 the union of these was effected by the combinatives, which I know 
 most persons call conjunctions ; but I think the former word answers 
 better to the original Greek avvletr^og. By degrees the philosophers, 
 and particularly the Stoics, augmented the number ; and first, they 
 added to the combinative the article, then the preposition. To the 
 noun they added the appellative, then the pronoun, and then the parti- 
 ciple, being of a mixed nature with the verb ; and finally to the verb 
 itself, they subjoined the adverb. Our (Latin) language does not 
 require articles, and therefore they are scattered among the other parts 
 of speech ; but we have added to the others the interjection. Some 
 writers of good repute, however, follow the doctrine of the eight parts 
 of speech, as Aristarchus, and in our own day Palamon, who have 
 ranked the vocable, or appellative under the noun, as one of its species ; 
 whilst those who divide it from the noun, make nine parts. Again 
 there are others who divide the vocable from the appellative, calling 
 by the former name all bodies distinguishable by sight and touch, as 
 a bed, or a house, and by the latter what is not distinguishable by one 
 or both these means, as the wind, heaven, virtue, God. These last- 
 mentioned authors, too, add what they call asseverations, as (the 
 Latin) Heu ! and attractations, as (the Latin) fasceatim ; but these 
 distinctions I cannot approve. As to the question whether or not the 
 vocable or appellative should be called irpoa-qyopia, and ranked under 
 the noun, as it is a matter of little moment, I leave it to the free 
 judgment of my readers." 
 
 76. Although Quintilian, who only touches on Grammar incident- 
 ally, speaks of Aristotle as maintaining that there were three parts of 
 speech, yet Varro says truly that Aristotle asserted there were two 
 parts of speech, the verb and the noun. In fact, Aristotle, in his 
 book 7rep) epurjveiag, treats of these two alone ; considering that of 
 them is made a perfect sentence, as "Socrates philosophises:" and 
 therefore Priscian says " the parts of speech are, according to the 
 logicians, two, viz., the noun and the verb, because these alone, con- 
 joined by their own force, make up a full speech, or sentence ; but 
 they called the other parts syncatagorematics, or consignificants. 
 Priscian, himself, however, maintained that there were eight parts of 
 speech; and he seems to have been implicitly followed for many 
 centuries ; but, though it is of little consequence whether we give the 
 name of parts to particular divisions or subdivisions, it is of great im- 
 
CHAP. III.] OF WORDS, AS PARTS OF SPEECH. 33 
 
 portance to determine on what principle speech should be divided and 
 subdivided. 
 
 77. Recurring, therefore, to the sentence above quoted from Shak- 
 speare, let us inquire how the words can be grammatically distin- 
 guished: and many various modes will readily present themselves: — 
 
 78. It may be observed that some of the words admit of varia- Variable and 
 tion, and others do not. Thus man may be varied into mans and words. 
 men : hath into have, hast, had, and having : sweet into sweeter, and 
 sweetest, &c, and, on the contrary, the words the, in, and, not, &c, 
 
 cannot be altered. But this is manifestly not an essential distinction, 
 since it does not take place in the same manner in all languages ; but, 
 on the contrary, every language is distinguished, more or less, from 
 every other, by peculiar modes of varying its words. Thus the 
 Gothic, Greek, Hebrew, Sanscrit, and Arabic languages, and it is said, 
 those of Patagonia, Lapland, and Greenland, have a variation in some 
 or all of their nouns to mark the dual number, which is unknown to 
 our own and many other tongues. So the Greeks and Eomans 
 varied their adjectives by the triple change of gender, number, and 
 case ; whereas the English never vary them in any of those ways. 
 If then the distinction of variable and invariable will not answer our 
 purpose, let us look for one that is more essential. 
 
 79. Having considered in the former instance the sound of the Affective and 
 word, I shall now take a distinction which arises from its significa- pm-SoT 6 
 tion. Thus M. Beauzee divides the parts of speech into two classes, speec ' 
 
 of which he says " the first includes the natural signs of sentiment, the 
 other the arbitrary signs of ideas : the former constitute the language 
 of the heart, and may be called affective ; the latter belong to the lan- 
 guage of the understanding, and are discursive" It is manifest that 
 the principle of this distinction is universal ; for though M. Beauzee 
 does not use the word " Ideas " in the senseless manner introduced 
 by Descartes and followed by Locke, "pro omni re cogitata," but for 
 acts of the understanding or reason alone, as distinguished from senti- 
 ment or feeling, yet the two classes taken together are applicable to 
 language in general ; for all men must be influenced by sentiment and 
 understanding, and all languages must possess some means of distin- 
 guishing these different faculties. But the question is, whether this 
 distinction is sufficient to account for the different classes of words : 
 and most assuredly it is not ; for though there are some words which 
 express only the objects of sentiment, and others which express only 
 the objects of knowledge, yet there are many which express both to- 
 gether, and many which directly express neither. Nor is it always 
 sufficient to use a word of one class in order to convey either an emo- 
 tion or a truth. These circumstances more frequently depend upon 
 the combination, than upon the distinction of words. 
 
 80. Let us now come to a third distinction, that of the Port Royal Object and 
 Grammarians, who say ' ' the greatest distinction of what passes in 
 
 our minds, is to consider in it the objects of our thoughts, and the 
 2. D 
 
34 OF WORDS, AS I' ARTS OF SPEECH. [CHAP. III. 
 
 form or manner of our thoughts, of which latter the principal is rea- 
 soning or judging ; but to this must be added the other movements of 
 the soul, as desire, command, interrogation, &c." This, again, is a 
 distinction universally applicable to language in point of signification : 
 and when we come to apply it to existing languages, it will be found 
 sufficiently accurate, 
 woidfanci ^1. But it has been observed, that this may be done with more 
 
 abbrevia- or less facility and despatch ; and that some words are absolutely 
 necessary for the communication of thought, whilst others may be 
 considered as abbreviations, in order to make the communication more 
 rapid and easy; as a sledge may have been first constructed to 
 draw along heavy goods, and may have been afterwards placed on 
 wheels to add celerity to the motion. ' Such is the theory of Mr. 
 Horne Tooke, and so far as we are here considering it, that theory 
 is perfectly just. 
 Principal and 82. The words which are necessary for communicating the thought 
 words? ry in any given sentence with the utmost simplicity, may well be called 
 principals, and those which only help to make out the thought 
 more fully and distinctly may be called accessories. These are the 
 terms employed by Mr. Harris, and consequently his theory so 
 far coincides with that of Mr. Tooke. Mr. Harris, however, adds, 
 that the principals are significant by themselves, and the accessories 
 significant by relation : whereas, Mr. Tooke says that the necessary 
 words are signs of things, and the abbreviations are signs of necessary 
 words. I shall hereafter have occasion to enter more at large into 
 this part of his doctrine. It is sufficient at present to observe, that 
 the doctrine does not interfere with the fundamental principle of 
 classification in all Grammars which deserve the name; that is to 
 say, of all which have proceeded on the signification of words, and 
 not merely on their sound. 
 Noun and t 83. Now, this principle, in whatever terms it is clothed, is, that 
 opinion. a ° 3 the noun and the verb are the primary parts of speech ; and that with- 
 out them, neither can a truth be enunciated, nor a passion expressed, 
 in combination with its object. This principle is the most ancient. 
 It boasts the support of the greatest of philosophers, of him, whom 
 for many ages, even Christianity recognised by the title of "the 
 divine," as approaching the nearest of all heathens to the divine light 
 of the Gospel. Plato, in his Dialogue called The Sophist, having 
 most profoundly and unanswerably argued on the nature of truth, 
 thus speaks of language : " We have in language two kinds of mani- 
 festation respecting existence, the one called nouns, the othei verbs. 
 We call the manifestation of action a verb ; but that sign of speech 
 which is imposed on the agent himself a noun. Therefore, of nouns 
 alone, uttered in any order, no sentence (or rational speech) can be 
 composed, neither can it be composed of verbs without nouns ; thus 
 * goes," * runs,' ' sleeps,' and such other words as signify action, 
 even though they should all be repeated in succession, would not 
 
CHAP. in. J OF WORDS, AS PAETS OF SPEECH. 35 
 
 make up a sentence. And again, if any one should say ' lion,' 
 * stag,' ' horse,' or should repeat the names of all the things which 
 do the actions before-mentioned, still no sentence would be made up 
 by all this enumeration ; for, neither in the one way, nor in the other, Notm and 
 do the words spoken manifest any real action, or inaction, or declare 
 that anything exists, or does not exist, until the verbs are mixed with 
 the nouns. Then, at length, the very first interweaving of them to- 
 gether, makes a sentence, however short; thus, if any one should 
 say, ' man leams,' you would pronounce at once that it was a sen- 
 tence, though as short a one as possible ; for then, at last, something 
 is declared which either exists, or has been done, or is doing, or will 
 be done ; and the speaker does not merely name things, but limits 
 and marks out their existence, by interweaving verbs with nouns, and 
 then, at last, we say ' he discourses, and does not merely recite 
 words.' " The only great name that for nearly 2000 years was ever 
 brought into competition with Plato's, was that of his scholar Aeis- Aristotle's 
 totle ; but Aristotle also, as has been seen, agreed with Plato, in 
 stating the noun and the verb as the two primary parts of speech, and 
 indeed the only parts necessary to be considered in the formation of a 
 simple sentence. In other portions of his works, looking at the com- 
 position of language in a more general point of view, he enumerated 
 three parts, viz., the noun, the verb, and the connective ; and, finally, 
 in his treatise on Poetry, s. 34, he enumerated two parts of speech as 
 significant, viz., the noun and the verb ; and two as non-significant, 
 viz., the article and conjunction. 
 
 84. The doctrine that the noun and verb are the primary parts of o/ n ^i| dea 
 speech, is incontestable. Apollonius, the grammarian, calls them 
 
 the most animated ; and all grammarians concede to them, at least, 
 the superiority over all the other parts of speech, in whatever manner 
 they choose to account for their preference. I am not, however, 
 inclined to adopt this, as the first step in a methodical arrangement ; 
 because I conceive that by approaching to the most general idea of 
 speech, it will be easier to reconcile the apparent differences, and to 
 correct the real errors of the different grammatical systems. I have 
 already defined speech to be the language of articulate sounds ; and 
 language to be any intentional mode of communicating the mind. 
 The most general idea of speech, therefore, is, that it is any inten- 
 tional mode of communicating the mind by articulate sounds. Now, 
 keeping in view this idea, let us see how it will apply to the doctrines 
 of those grammarians whom I have already mentioned, in respect to 
 the mode of distributing speech into its parts. 
 
 85. When writers of any eminence advance a particular doctrine, Combination 
 we may generally be persuaded, that it is not wholly destitute of oftheones - 
 foundation ; although, from the natural partiality that men have for 
 
 their own thoughts, they may probably rank such doctrines higher 
 than they deserve. All the different theories that I have here noticed 
 
 d2 
 
36 OF WORDS, AS PARTS OF SPEECH. [CHAP. III. 
 
 are true, to a certain degree, and, by combining them together, the 
 best and clearest view of our subject may perhaps be attained. 
 
 combination 86. In the method which I am disposed to pursue, the principle 
 of M. Beauzee first merits attention. There are words which are 
 simply affective, namely, interjections ; all other words are discursive, 
 inasmuch as they may be employed in expressing the operations of 
 reason. Again, all words which are employed in reasoning must be 
 considered either as principals, or as accessories, and thus the common 
 principle of Harris and Tooke may be combined with that of 
 Beauzee ; but with this caution, that the question whether a parti- 
 cular word be a principal or an accessory, depends on the relation 
 which that word hears to the sentence in which it is employed. I repeat 
 this ; because it has been often overlooked by grammarians, many of 
 whom seem not to have adverted to the circumstance that speech is 
 an expression of the mind, when actually engaged in some operation. 
 They treat words as if they were corporeal substances, cast in a 
 mould, for use. Now, the very same words, that are principals in 
 one sentence, may become accessories in the next. The principal 
 words in a sentence are of course necessary for the communication of 
 thought ; but we cannot communicate what we do not comprehend ; 
 and as we cannot comprehend any thought without first conceiving it 
 as an object, so we cannot communicate it to others, unless we either 
 assert something concerning it, or express some emotion in connexion 
 with it. Here, therefore, the theory of the Port Royal gram- 
 marians properly finds its place ; for they include the assertion of a 
 truth and the expression of an emotion under the words, " the 
 manner of thinking." With respect to the writers who divide words, 
 according as they are susceptible of variation, or the contrary, although 
 it is true that such a quality exists in the words of most languages, 
 yet it cannot be taken into consideration in treating of Universal 
 Grammar, being a circumstance merely contingent and accidental. 
 
 Recapituia- 87. The result, therefore, of the preceding remarks, is, that speech 
 should be considered as intended to communicate either passion or 
 reason : when it communicates mere passion, without any. precise 
 object, it supplies the part of speech called the interjection ; when it 
 communicates passion, and at the same time indicates an object, it 
 indirectly reasons, and therefore employs some at least of the parts of 
 speech, "which are required in reasoning. Now, the parts of speech 
 required in reasoning are either such as are necessary to form a simple 
 sentence, or such as serve for accessories, in order to give complexity 
 to sentences ; but a simple sentence cannot be formed without a noun 
 and a verb, and is immediately formed by putting a noun and a verb 
 together. The noun and the verb then are the necessary parts of 
 speech, the former serving to name the conception, the latter to 
 supply in reasoning the assertion, or in passion the emotion. There 
 is, however, one observation very important to be made with respect 
 
 tion. 
 
 
CHAP. III.] OF WORDS, AS PARTS OF SPEECH. 37 
 
 to the verb, namely, that it involves a noun; that is to say, we 
 cannot assert a truth, or express an emotion, which truth or emotion 
 may not be considered by the mind as a conception. Thus, if we 
 say " God exists" we excite in the mind the two distinct conceptions 
 of " God" and " Existence," as much as if we said, *' God is in 
 existence ;" and so if we say " Come, Antony," we excite the con- 
 ception of coming, as well as of Antony ; but the difference is, that 
 the words " come" and " exists" are not presented to the hearer as 
 mere objects of thought, but as modes of thinking about other objects, 
 viz., " Antony" and " God." The principle, on which the noun and 
 the verb are to be reckoned among the parts of speech, being thus 
 fixed, will enable us to clear up several difficulties which occur in the 
 subdivision of these classes. 
 
 88. The old grammarians in general divided nouns into nouns sub- Substantive 
 stantive and nouns adjective ; but R. Johnson, Harris, Lowth, and ^ d]ectlve> 
 others, consider the substantive alone as a noun ; and Harris ranks 
 
 the adjective with the verb, under the common name of attributive. 
 Tooke asserts that the adjective is truly and simply a substantive : 
 whilst a recent writer contends that primitive nouns are not names of 
 things, at least not of substances or material objects, but of their 
 qualities or attributes. The latter theory is so far plausible, that the 
 names of many substances are derived from their qualities, as the 
 words denoting a Fox, in English, German, and Sanscrit, signify a 
 hairy animal, while those in Persian and Icelandic denote a thievish 
 animal ; but this is a mere fact in the history of language, and involves 
 no such necessity in the constitution of the human mind, as to render 
 it a principle in the science of language. The question is, whether 
 we cannot as readily form a conception of an attribute or quality, as 
 of the substance to which it belongs, and vice versa. Now, if we 
 appeal to common experience, we shall find that men of the most 
 untutored or most uncultivated minds have as clear a conception ot 
 the colour " blue," as they have of a garment, and can as readily 
 distinguish " blue" from " red," as they can a " coat" from a 
 " cloak." To every ordinary understanding, the "Sun," a " Horse," 
 or a " Man," is an object of thought, and therefore may have a name, 
 which name is a noun; but " bright," " swift," "wise," are also 
 objects of thought, and therefore have names, which names should in 
 like manner be deemed nouns. 
 
 89. A noun is considered substantively, when in asserting anything Tsoun sub- 
 concerning it, we make it the subject of the assertion, and regard it stantlve - 
 as that to which some other noun relates, expressing a quality belong- 
 ing to it, or an action done or suffered by it, or a class to which it 
 belongs. Thus, when we say, " Socrates was wise," " the Horse is 
 running," •' Prudence is a virtue," the words " Socrates," " Horse," 
 
 and " Prudence," are nouns substantive. 
 
 90. A noun is considered adjectively, when in asserting anything Nounadjec- 
 concerning it, we refer it to some other noun, as that of which it lve * 
 
38 
 
 OF WORDS, AS PARTS OF SPEECH. 
 
 [CHAP. III. 
 
 expresses a quality. Thus, when we say, " Socrates was wise," we 
 contemplate wisdom only so far as it was a quality of Socrates ; and 
 the noun " wise" is therefore a noun adjective. In this case, the 
 assertion is direct; but the same consequence results where the 
 assertion is merely implied ; for, if we say " wise Socrates dwelt at 
 Athens," we impliedly assert that he was wise, though the direct 
 assertion is only that he dwelt at Athens ; " wise/' therefore, in this 
 instance also, is a noun adjective. As to the above-mentioned sen- 
 tences, " the Horse is running," and " Prudence is a virtue," they 
 will hereafter demand consideration, in a different point of view. 
 
 Participles. 91. When we speak of Socrates as wise, we speak of him as pos- 
 sessing a quality fixed and permanent ; but if, instead of saying 
 Socrates is wise, we say " Socrates is speaking," or " is walking," or 
 " was speaking " or " was walking," or " will be speaking " or " will 
 be walking," we speak of a quality in action at a given time : and 
 this difference of meaning has led grammarians to distinguish words of 
 the latter class from nouns, and to call them participles ; because they 
 participate of the nature of a noun, and also of the nature of a verb, as 
 it will presently be explained. Since the word participle has been so 
 long in use among grammarians as designating a separate part of 
 speech, I shall not hesitate so to use it ; for although in some lan- 
 guages (as it is said, in the Ethiopic) there is no peculiar form cor- 
 responding to this distinction, there must always exist in the human 
 mind a difference between the operations which answer to our word 
 adjective, and those which answer to our word participle. It must be 
 remembered, however, that both fall under the definition of a noun, as 
 the mere name of a conception in the mind, without asserting that it 
 does exist or does not ; for " Socrates walking" is no more an assertion 
 than " Socrates wise," without the interposition of a verb, such as 
 " is," or " has been," or " will be." Of the Latin gerunds and supines, 
 which some reckon among participles, I shall speak hereafter. 
 
 Pronouns. 92. Hitherto I have spoken of nouns substantive and adjective in 
 
 their primary mode of use ; but there is a secondary operation of the 
 mind, which makes certain nouns act as mere representatives (so to 
 speak) of whole classes of other nouns. These representative, or 
 secondary nouns, are called by -grammarians pronouns,, and form in all 
 languages very conspicuous parts of speech. They are divided, like 
 the primary nouns which they represent, into substantive and ad- 
 jective ; thus, " I" "thou," and " Ae," are pronouns representing 
 substantive nouns, namely, " I," the speaker, when speaking of him- 
 self; "thou," the person to whom he directs his discourse; and 
 " he," some other person. On the other hand, when we say " this 
 man and that man," this and that are pronouns, the former represent- 
 ing some noun adjective, such as "near," or "present," or "first," 
 the latter representing a different noun adjective, such as " distant," 
 or " absent," or " second." But these and other distinctions of 
 the pronoun I shall presently consider more in detail. The Article, 
 
CHAP, in.] OF WOEDS, AS PAETS OF SPEECH. 39 
 
 which has frequently been treated as a pronoun, and which, in those The Article, 
 languages in which it exists, was originally a pronoun, represents the 
 exercise of that faculty of the mind by which we limit an uni- 
 versal or general conception to a particular conception. In this 
 respect it differs from the pronoun, as well as from the adjective and 
 substantive nouns, and may therefore properly be considered as a 
 separate part of speech ; but inasmuch as it neither expresses an 
 emotion, nor is necessary to form a simple sentence, I shall notice it 
 among the accessories. 
 
 93. Besides the noun, the only principal necessary part of speech, The Verb, 
 is the Verb. Of this I shall hereafter speak at large. For the present, 
 
 it is only material to remark that they who confound it with the 
 adjective and the participle, overlook its peculiar function, which is 
 that of asserting ; as the function of the noun, is that of naming. As 
 to the separate chsses of verbs, the verb substantive, the transitive, 
 the active, the passive, &c, since these have not been treated of by 
 any grammarians as separate parts of speech, it will not be necessary 
 to notice them in this chapter. 
 
 94. The great dispute, especially in modern times, has been with Accessory 
 respect to the accessory parts of speech, the nature of which has been speech, 
 illustrated by a variety of similes. They have been said to be like 
 stones in the summit or curve of an arch, or like the springs of a 
 vehicle, or like tie flag of a ship, or like the hair of a man, or like 
 
 the nails and cenent uniting the wood and stones of an edifice ; and 
 hence some persens have contended that they are only significant by 
 relation ; some tiat they are not parts of speech ; and some that they 
 are not even woids but particles. — Thus Apueeius says, " they are 
 no more to be considered as parts of speech than the flag is to be 
 considered a part; of the ship, or the hair a part of the man ; or, at 
 least, in the conpacting and fitting together of a sentence, they only 
 perform the office of nails, or pitch, or mortar." Peisciax, however, 
 one of the most acute and intelligent of grammarians, observes, that if 
 these words are not to be considered as parts of speech because they 
 serve to connec. together others which are parts, we must say that the 
 muscles and shews of a man are no parts of a man ; and he, there- 
 fore, concludes by declaring his opinion, that the noun and verb are 
 the principal aid chief parts of speech, but that these others are the 
 subordinate anl appendant parts. 
 
 95. The decision of this and similar questions will be easily made, simple 
 if we only advert to the mental operations which these accessory 
 words express; and in order to explain this, we must first ask, what 
 words in a sertence are accessories ? This question again is answered 
 
 by referring tc what has been said of sentences. In a simple sentence, 
 all the word; are principals. Thus " Man is fit," contains two 
 nouns, which are the names of two conceptions, viz., "man" and 
 " fitness," anl the assertion of their coincidence by the verb " is;" 
 and moreover since the conception of fitness is regarded as existing 
 
40 OF WORDS, AS PARTS OF SPEECH. [CHAP. III. 
 
 not separately but in the other conception, man, the word "fit" is an 
 adjective and " man " is a substantive. The same would be the case 
 if the place of the noun " man" were supplied by the pronoun " he" 
 and that of the adjective " fit," by the participle suited. 
 
 sentence ated ^* Such ^ s the case when the sentence is simple ; but we are next 
 to consider how a simple sentence is rendered complex ; and this is no 
 otherwise done than by engrafting on it other sentences : but in these 
 latter the conceptions only are expressed, and the .assertive part is 
 assumed or understood. Thus, if referring to the passage before 
 quoted from Shakspeare, we say " Man is fit," we may be asked, 
 of what kind is the aptitude of which you are speakirg ? The answer 
 must be " it is treasonable" And again if we are asked, of what 
 disposition is the man of whom you make this assertion ? We may 
 say "he is unmusical ;" and suppressing the assertions in the two 
 secondary sentences, we may form of the whole one complex sentence, 
 thus, " unmusical men possess treasonable aptitudes." 
 
 Further com- 97. In this first process of complication we find only words capable 
 
 pica ion. Q £ k^g usec [ as principals, viz., nouns, substantive or adjective; 
 pronouns, participles, and verbs ; but suppose we again resolve these 
 into their constitutent conceptions and assertions; suppose we ask 
 what do you mean when you speak of a treasonable fitness, or 
 aptitude? We may answer, we mean that the fitness looks to 
 treason ; treason is before the fitness (as its mark or object), the fitness 
 is for treason. Here it is plain that the word "Jor" involves the 
 conception of foreness (or objectiveness), and applies that conception 
 to the other conception of treason : but it does so siill more rapidly 
 and obscurely, than in the cases before supposed ; aid hence it is that 
 in this second process of complication we meet with vords which are 
 no longer thought significant, and therefore no longer called nouns or 
 verbs, but articles, adverbs, conjunctions, and prepositions ; and these 
 words are the more numerous and frequent of occurrence, in propor- 
 tion as men become more civilised, and more frequently render their 
 sentences complex by subdividing the primary truth into many others. 
 Thus, as the word " treasonable " may be supplied by the words 
 " for treasons," so the word " unmusical" may be stpplied first by 
 the words " hath no music in himself," and secondly, by the words 
 " is not moved with concord of sweet sounds;" both which, and 
 many similar modes of speech, consist of various aggregations of sen- 
 tences, in which the subordinate assertions are assumed by the mind in 
 the manner already shown. 
 
 t ^ M 8F e ttan ^' ^^ e worc ^ s > which, by use, come to be most frequently em- 
 ployed in any particular language for these secondary purposes, often 
 lose their primary signification, and perhaps undergo sone little change 
 of sound ; from which circumstances a great dispute has arisen of late 
 among grammarians whether they are significant words cr not. Thus 
 the preposition for, which, as we have shown, conveys tie conception 
 of foreness , is nothing more than the word fore in for&nost, before, 
 
CHAP. III.J OF WORDS, AS PARTS OF SPEECH. 41 
 
 fore and aft, and the like words and phrases ; but by use, and by the 
 slight change which it has undergone, it has come to lose the property 
 of forming a principal part in a sentence. These circumstances, how- 
 ever, it must be observed, are merely accidental ; they may happen 
 to the. same conception in one language and not in another; and, 
 therefore, they cannot form a just scientific criterion between the 
 parts of speech ; but on the other hand, those parts may, and must, 
 be distinguished by the different operations of mind which they 
 express ; and as we have seen that the operations, expressed by the 
 articles, adverbs, conjunctions, and prepositions, are clearly distin- 
 guishable from those expressed by the nouns, pronouns, verbs, and 
 participles, inasmuch as they relate to a subordinate step in the 
 analysis of thought ; so there can be no impropriety in calling them 
 accessories, with reference to the others, which we call principals. 
 
 99. From what I have said, it will not appear strange, that the Etymology 
 accessory words should be for the most part traceable to their origin words? ssory 
 as principals ; that is to say, that the parts of speech last mentioned 
 should in general be found to have been once used (with little or no 
 difference of sound) as nouns and verbs. It has been supposed that 
 
 this was a new discover of Mr. Horne Tooke's, and in many parts 
 of his work he seems to have entertained that notion himself; how 
 justly, may be seen from the following, among other authorities to the 
 like effect. 
 
 100. B. de Spinosa composed a Hebrew Grammar, published with Spinosa. 
 his posthumous works in 1677. In this, he says, " Omnes Hebrosce 
 voces, exceptis tantum Interjectio?iibus et Conjunctionibus, et una, aut 
 altera particula, vim et proprietates Nominis habent." (p. 17.) 
 
 101. The same doctrine is laid down in a treatise by C. Koerber, Koerber. 
 printed at Jena, in 1712, entitled " Lexicon Particularum Ebrsearum, 
 
 vel potius Nominum et Verborum, vulgo pro particulis habitorum." 
 This writer says, in his preface, that his tutor Danzius taught that 
 " most, if not all the separate particles, were in their own nature 
 nouns;" that this was indeed a " new and unheard of hypothesis;" 
 but that on investigation the reader would find reason to conclude 
 universally (in respect to the Hebrew language at least) that " all the 
 separate particles are either nouns or verbs." His words are these : 
 " Particular separator si non omnes certe plerazque sua natura sunt 
 Nomina" — " hanc thesin hactenus novam et inauditam;" and again, 
 " Omnes omnino Ebr&orum particulas separatas aut nomina esse aut verba" 
 Koerber illustrates his position by comparing the Hebrew particles 
 with radical words, both in that and the cognate languages, particu- 
 larly in the Arabic. Among the instances which he gives, are the 
 following, viz. : — 
 
 Juxta, near, being the same as Lotus, side. 
 
 Prceter, beside or beyond {^efectus, deficiency. 
 
 J [lerminus, boundary. 
 
 Inter, between Distinctus, divided. 
 
42 OF WORDS, AS PARTS OF SPEECH. [CHAP. III. 
 
 Post, after Tergum, the back. 
 
 Quoque, also Adde, add. 
 
 Vel, or JEUge, choose. 
 
 He even explains the interjection Lo ! as being identical with the 
 pronoun of the third person ; and suggests that the termination of the 
 accusative case is a noun, signifying object. 
 
 Bayer. 102. T. S. Bayer, in 1730, published his Museum Sinicum, in 
 
 which he says the same of the Chinese Language — " JEadem vox et 
 substantivum et adjectivum et verbum, et qualiscumque pars Orationis 
 fieri potest, si id natura rei fert ; v. g. : Sien Sacrificium, sacrifico ; 
 Hiisr Icetari, loetitia, Icetus, hilariter ; Xo mollities, emollesco, molliter ; 
 Ca misceo, mixtura, mixti, confuse." (v. i v p. 17.) 
 
 Lennep. ^03. In the posthumous work of J. D. van Lennep, who died in 
 1771, on the Analogies of the Greek Language, is this passage : — 
 " Ex octo igitur partibus orationis quas vulgo statuunt Grammatici, 
 Verbum et Nomen principem locum obtinent, cum reliquas omnes 
 facile ad harum alterutram referri queant, quare etiam Aristoteles, 
 aliique e veteribus duos tantum partes orationis statuerunt. Addunt 
 quidem nonnulli tertiam, utriusque nempe et verbi et nominis, ligamen- 
 tum, quod nempe particulse aliseque ea pertinentia orationem veluti 
 connectunt, sed qui attentius eas res consideraverit, facile animadvertet, 
 omnia ferd, saltern quod ad exteriorem formam, referenda esse vel ad 
 nominum vel ad verborum classem. Ita v. g. particula to ovv, ' igitur/ 
 vere participium est contractum ex eov, quod a participio etav, verbi 
 eta, unde elfi), adebque ad nominum classem proprie pertinet. Eadem 
 ratio manifesta est in vocabulis iro\, 71-77, nov" &c. 
 
 This treatise was probably written some years previously to the 
 author's death; for in 1752 he delivered an academic discourse com- 
 paring the analogies of language with those of the mental operations. 
 
 Tooke. 104. Whether or not Mr. Tooke ever saw any of these treatises is 
 
 immaterial. His discovery may, probably, have been a bond fide one, 
 so far as regarded his own reflections, though not one that was new 
 to the world. But he seems to have connected with it a very mate- 
 rial error in Grammar, namely, that because a word was once a noun, 
 it always remained so, and consequently that adverbs, conjunctions, 
 &c, expressed no new or different operation of the mind, and were 
 not to be considered as separate parts of speech, so far at least as re- 
 lated to their signification. Had Mr. Tooke been as well acquainted 
 with the writings of Plato, as he was with some old English and 
 Saxon authors, he would hardly have fallen into this error ; for he 
 would have perceived that speech receives its forms from the mind ; 
 and would have acknowledged with that great philosopher that 
 " thought and speech are the same ; only the internal and silent dis- 
 course of the mind, with herself, is called by us Atayota, thought, or 
 cogitation : but the effusion of the mind, through the lips, m articu- 
 late sound, is called Aoyog, or rational speech," It is, therefore, the 
 mind that shapes the sentence into its principal parts and accessories : 
 
CHAP. III.] OF WORDS, AS PARTS OF SPEECH. 43 
 
 it is the mind which distributes alike the principal and the accessory 
 parts into subdivisions, according as they are necessary to its own 
 distinguishable operations, 
 
 105. Those ancient grammarians who acknowledged only three Ancient 
 parts of speech, viz., the noun, verb, and conjunction, ranked some of 
 
 the parts which we here call accessories under the principal parts. 
 Thus Apollonius of Alexandria, and Priscian, rank the adverb under 
 the verb, and with them agrees Harris, who calls the adverb a se- 
 condary attribute ; but Alexander Aphrodisiensis, who is followed by 
 Boethius, observes, that it is sometimes more properly referred to the 
 class of nouns ; and so Tooke asserts some adverbs to be nouns and 
 some verbs. The preposition which was referred by Dionysius and 
 Priscian to the conjunctions, is on a similar principle included by 
 Harris with the common conjunction in the class of connectives ; and 
 Tooke distributes both prepositions and conjunctions (in many instances 
 rightly, as far as their etymology is concerned) among the verbs and 
 nouns. Lastly, the article appears to have most disturbed the gram- 
 marians in their arrangements : for Fabius says it was first reckoned 
 among conjunctions ; and we have seen that, when Aristotle divided 
 speech into four parts, he separated the article from the conjunction, 
 making of it a class apart from the three other parts of speech. 
 Vossius inclines to rank it among nouns, like a pronoun ; but Harris 
 having divided the accessory parts of speech into definitives and con- 
 nectives, makes the article a branch of the former. Tooke says that 
 our article the is the imperative mood of the Anglo-Saxon verb thean, 
 to take ! Lastly, Scaliger says, the article does not exist in Latin, is 
 superfluous in Greek, and is, in French, the idle instrument of a chat- 
 tering people. 
 
 106. Since in this diversity of opinions, I can perceive no common New principle 
 view of any principle which connects itself with the idea of language proposed - 
 before laid down, I find myself compelled to seek a new division. I 
 
 say, therefore, that the accessory parts of speech represent operations of 
 the mind, which from their frequent recurrence have become habitual, 
 and from their absolute "necessity in modifying other thoughts, must be 
 found more or less in all cultivated languages. It is true, that these 
 operations are not performed by all men with the same distinctness, 
 and therefore do not exist among all nations in the same degree of 
 perfection ; and lastly, it is true, that in some languages they are ex- 
 pressed by separate words, and in other languages by different in- 
 flections of the same word. Hence a close connection is found between 
 the prepositions of one language, and the cases of another ; and between 
 the auxiliary verbs of one language, and the tenses of another. Hence, 
 too, the comparison of adjectives, usually effected in Latin by dif- 
 ferent terminations, is often effected in English by adverbs prefixed to 
 the adjectives. In short, numberless illustrations of this remark will 
 easily occur to the recollection of any person at all acquainted with 
 different languages, ancient or modern, barbarous or refined. 
 
44 OF WORDS, AS PARTS OF SPEECH. [CHAP. III. 
 
 Article. 107. Of the mental operations above described, one, and that not 
 
 the least essential, consists in determining whether we view any given 
 conception as an universal, a general, or a particular ; and if as a 
 particular, whether as a certain, or an uncertain one ; and if certain, 
 whether of one known class, or another known class ; and so forth. 
 Thus there is a certain conception of the mind expressed by the word 
 *' man ;" but if we employ that expression for the purpose of commu- 
 nicating the conception, it is necessary that those who hear us should 
 know with what degree of particularity it is to be applied ; for it would 
 be one thing to say, that, according to our idea of human nature, man 
 is universally benevolent ; and another to say, that men in general are 
 so ; and a third to say that any man, under- given circumstances, may 
 be so ; and a fourth to say, that this or that man is so. Of these dif- 
 ferent degrees of limitation some may be marked by separate words ; 
 and of those words, some may express a conception so distinct and 
 self-evident, as to be capable of forming a simple sentence, in which 
 case we should reckon them as pronominal adjectives, among the 
 principal parts of speech ; as when we say, " this man is good," 
 " that man is bad," the words this and that, are pronominal adjectives. 
 But since we cannot say "the is good," or "a is good," and since 
 these words the and a, serve no other purpose but to define and par- 
 ticularize some other conception, and do not even perform this function 
 completely, without reference to some further conceptions, we may, 
 in those languages in which they exist, reckon them as a separate, but 
 accessorial part of speech, under the name of the article. 
 
 Preposition. 108. The word Preposition is badly chosen from its use (and even 
 that use not without exception) in the Latin language ; nevertheless, 
 it has become sufficiently intelligible to signify a class of words which 
 describe another sort of mental operation. When one object is placed 
 in a certain relation to another object, whether it be a relation of 
 time, of space, of instrumentality, causation, or the like, the con- 
 ception of that relation serves as a bond to unite them in the secondary 
 parts of a sentence. That expression may form part of a word, as 
 " to overleap a fence ;" or it may constitute a separate word, as 
 " to leap over a fence;" and in the latter instance the word over is 
 called a preposition, which I therefore do not hesitate to rank as a 
 separate part of speech. 
 
 Conjunction. 109. As the preposition connects conceptions, the Conjunction con- 
 nects assertions ; or, as it is commonly expressed, the preposition joins 
 nouns, the conjunction verbs, and consequently sentences. By con- 
 necting, in both instances, I mean showing the relations, whether of 
 agreement or disagreement ; and these also may be expressed either in 
 the form of the verb, or by means of a separate particle : of which a 
 sentence before quoted affords an illustration — 
 
 Duller should' st thou be than the fat weed, 
 Wouldst thou not stir in this ; — 
 
 where, if rendered into the more common expression, " if thou 
 
CHAP. HI.] OF WORDS, AS PARTS OF SPEECH. 45 
 
 wouldst not stir," the relation between stirring in the cause, and being 
 dull, would be expressed by the word if, to which I therefore give 
 the name of a conjunction. Hence, it appears, that the conjunction 
 may not improperly be reckoned a distinct part of speech, since it 
 expresses a distinct operation of the mind. 
 
 110. More doubt may perhaps exist as to the Adverb, a class in Adverb, 
 which grammarians have often confounded words of very various effect 
 
 and import, such as interjections and conjunctions. Neither do I, in 
 this instance, any more than in those of the participle and preposition, 
 pay much regard to the etymology of the word adverb ; but I take it 
 as a word in common use, and applicable to a large class of words 
 which describe operations of the mind very distinguishable from those 
 which have been already considered. The adverb either expresses a 
 conception which serves to modify another conception of quality or 
 action ; or else it expresses a conception of time, place, or the like, by 
 which the assertion itself is modified : in either case it serves to 
 modify by its own force, and not, like the preposition, as an inter- 
 mediate bond between other conceptions. 
 
 111. The following Table will show how Words, as significant Classes of 
 constituents of a complex sentence, may be distributed into classes, or 
 Parts of Speech. 
 
 I. Words used in enunciative sentences: 
 
 I. principal words, 
 
 1. The Noun, the name of a mental conception, 
 i. primarily, 
 
 1. Expressing a substance, (the Noun substantive). 
 
 2. Expressing a quality. 
 
 1. without action, (the Noun adjective). 
 
 2. with action, (the Participle). 
 secondarily, (the Pronoun). 
 
 2. The Verb, asserting existence or action. 
 
 II. accessorial words, 
 
 1. limiting the extent of an universal or general conception 
 to a particular (the Article). 
 
 2. showing the relation, in a complex sentence, of one sub- 
 stantive conception to another, or to an assertion, (the 
 Preposition). 
 
 3. connecting one assertion with another, according to their 
 relations, (the Conjunction). 
 
 4. modifying a conception of quality or an assertion, (the 
 Adverb). 
 
 II. Words used either in passionate sentences, or as separate ex- 
 pressions of passion, (the Interjection). 
 
 112. The mental operations which these various classes of words Mental opera- 
 represent, are obviously distinct ; but it by no means follows from 
 
 thence that the words themselves are so ; that a word which has been 
 employed as a substantive may not also be employed as a conjunction ; 
 
46 OF WORDS, AS PARTS OF SPEECH. [CHAP. III. 
 
 Mental opera- or that the very sound by which we have expressed an assertion may 
 not be used as a preposition or an interjection. In short, there is no 
 reason why one word should not successively travel through all the 
 different classes here stated ; for it must be remembered, that words 
 do not communicate thought by their separate power and effect only, 
 but infinitely more so by their connection : and consequently the mode 
 of connecting the signs, and not the signs themselves, determines their 
 place in any given class. The first exercise of the reasoning power, 
 we have seen, is conception; and of all our mental operations, whether 
 relative to the external world, or to the laws of mind itself, con- 
 ceptions may be formed ; and to all the conceptions which we form, 
 names may be given ; and those names are nouns ; and therefore it is 
 not surprising that all other words, except interjections, should be his- 
 torically traceable to nouns as their origin. Nay, since reason and 
 passion are so complicated in man, we must not wonder that a con- 
 nection is often to be found even between interjections and nouns. 
 Thus our substantive Woe, which is the Scottish Woe, agrees with the 
 Latin interjection Vae ! probably pronounced by the Komans Wae ; 
 and with many interjections and other parts of speech, in various 
 Teutonic languages, as will be shown hereafter. Surely, this affords 
 no proof, nor shadow of a proof, that the different uses of the same, 
 or different words, do not depend on the different exercise of the 
 mental faculties; but, on the contrary, it absolutely demonstrates the 
 necessity of some mental operation to distinguish between the different 
 meanings, force, and effect of the same sign, as, employed on different 
 occasions. 
 
(47) 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OF NOUNS. 
 
 113. The classes of words, which form grammatically the Parts 
 of Speech, being thus determined, I proceed to explain them in order, 
 beginning with that which, according to all systems, stands first in 
 importance, the Noun. 
 
 114. "It is by nouns," says Cour de Gebelin, " that we desig- The Noun, 
 nate all the beings which exist. We render them known instantly by 
 
 these means, as if they were placed before our eyes. Thus, in the 
 most solitary retreat, in the most profound obscurity, we are able to 
 pass in review the universality of beings, to represent to ourselves our 
 parents, our friends, all that we have most dear, all that has struck 
 us, all that may instruct or amuse us ; and in pronouncing their names 
 we may reason on them with our associates. We thus keep a register 
 of all that is, and of all that we know ; even of those things which 
 we have not seen, but which have been made known to us by means 
 of their relation to other things already known to us. Let us not be 
 astonished, then, that man, who speaks of every thing, who studies 
 every thing, who takes note of every thing, should have given names 
 to all things that exist, to his body and its different parts, to his soul, 
 to his faculties, to that prodigious number of beings which cover the 
 earth or are hid in its bosom, which fill the waters, and move in the 
 air ; that he gives names to the mountains, the rivers, the rocks, the 
 woods, the stars, to his dwellings, to his fields, to the fruits on which 
 he feeds, to the instruments of all kinds with which he executes the 
 greatest labours, to all the beings which compose his society, or, that 
 the memory of those illustrious persons who deserve well of mankind 
 by their benefactions, and their talents, is perpetuated by their names 
 from age to age. Man does more. He gives names to objects not in 
 existence, to multitudes of beings, as if they formed but a single in- 
 dividual, and often to the qualities of objects, in order that he may be 
 able to speak of them in the same manner as he does of objects really 
 existing." 
 
 115. This great power of the Noun is to be attributed solely Its origin, 
 to that faculty of the mind by which it is formed : and that power I 
 
 have called Conception. Every act of this power produces one 
 thought, presents to our view one object, more or less distinct. We 
 conceive a certain impression to which we give a name, be it " red" ^ 
 or "white," "John" or "Peter," "man" or "woman," "animal" 
 or "vegetable," "virtue" or vice;" or whatsoever else we can dis- 
 tinguish from the mass of continued consciousness which constitutes 
 our being. 
 
 116. We do not name every impression that we receive, or eyery 
 
48 OF NOUNS. [chap. IV. 
 
 act that we perform. In truth, we do not name any one separately 
 and distinctly from all others. It would be useless to do so, in a 
 single instance : it would be impossible to do so in all. But we name 
 what often occurs to us. We have often a sensation of colour ; we 
 call it "white:" we have often a feeling of pleasure; we call it 
 "joyous :" we often see an object which affects us with peculiar sen- 
 timents of regard or aversion ; we call it " father" or " enemy :" we 
 often meditate on thoughts, which appear to us amiable or the re- 
 verse; we call them "benevolence" or "hatred." In this manner it 
 is that our catalogue of names is formed. 
 
 117. Each of these thoughts or conceptions has its natural and 
 proper limits ; but these we do not always very accurately observe. 
 No man confounds "red" with "white," but he confounds "whitish" 
 with " reddish." A boy does not think his hoop square, but he knows 
 not whether it is circular or elliptical. Thus it is, that men do not 
 agree in their opinions of many things, to which they nevertheless 
 agree in giving some common names ; otherwise it would be impos- 
 sible for them to communicate to each other anything like the thoughts 
 or feelings which they respectively entertain. 
 
 118. The relation between words and thoughts has been expressed 
 in various ways by writers on language. Plato calls the Verb 
 drjXojfxa, a " showing forth" and the Noun, aruneiov, a " sign;" Aris- 
 totle sometimes calls a word ar]\xkiov, a sign, and sometimes av/j-fioXoy, 
 a symbol ; Plotinus says, 6 kv tyiovTi Xoyog, jjljjirjfxa th Iv i^v^i}, " the 
 word (or sentence) in the voice is an imitation of that in the soul ;" 
 Cicero renders the avfifioXov of Aristotle by the Latin Nota, a 
 " mark" More modern writers have described words as the Pictures, 
 the Echoes, the Colours, the Vestments of thoughts, the representatives 
 of thoughts, of ideas, of mental operations, &c. The author of a 
 recent work, entitled " The Discovery of the Science of Languages," 
 objects to all expressions which imply that words in any manner 
 represent thoughts. He observes, that if words had this power, " we 
 should have as many names for the same object, as we receive various 
 impressions from it ;" that " no single person can ever see the same 
 thing twice in the same manner ;" and that, " no two persons could 
 ever have a common impression of it ;" consequently intelligible lan- 
 guage would, on this supposition, be wholly impossible. The objection 
 would be just, if we were to take such expressions, as those above 
 quoted, in their literal sense ; but they are obviously figurative ; 
 because we have no other means of explaining mental operations than 
 by the analogies which we suppose them to bear to sensible acts and 
 objects. What the authors in question mean is not that every word, 
 as uttered by a speaker, is an exact representation of a thought existing 
 in his mind at the time ; but that words in general serve to indicate 
 what is passing in the human mind. And this indeed words do, 
 partly by their separate signification, but more by their grammatical 
 arrangement. 
 
CHAP. IV.] OF NOUNS. 49 
 
 119. It is according to the place which a particular word occupies The Noun, 
 in such an arrangement, and to the function which it therein exercises, 
 
 that it receives its grammatical designation as a part of speech. A 
 word is called a Noun when in a simple sentence it serves merely to 
 name a conception, and not to assert anything concerning it. Indeed, 
 the English word noun is nothing but a corrupt pronunciation of the 
 French nom, which, like the Italian nome, was again a corruption of 
 the Latin nomen, and this latter was of common origin with the Greek 
 ovojia, which, both in the Iliad and Odyssey, signifies the name by 
 which a person is distinguished from others ; the radix being found in 
 the verb ve/jlu), to allot, attribute, or distribute. And as a personal 
 name distinguishes the man, to whom it is allotted, from other men, 
 so a noun distinguishes the thing or thought, to which it is allotted, 
 from other things or thoughts. The trite definition of a noun, as 
 " the name of a thing which may be seen, felt, heard, or understood" 
 is equivocal ; for it may or may not include adjectives, and nouns 
 commonly called abstract, according as the words " thing " and 
 " understood " receive a stricter or more lax interpretation. I there- 
 fore prefer defining a noun, the name of a conception ; and it has 
 been seen that, by a conception, I mean whatsoever we can contem- 
 plate in thought as one existence, either subjectively in the mind, or 
 objectively in the external world, and either as substance, or as attri- 
 bute ; for red is as much the name of a certain colour, as Peter is the 
 name of a certain man, or England of a certain country ; and in like 
 manner virtue is as much the name of a certain thought, as a ship is 
 the name of a certain thing ; all these, therefore, and whatever other 
 words serve, in a simple sentence, to name any conception of the 
 mind, are nouns. 
 
 120. It is next to be considered, how nouns may be best distri- Classes of 
 buted into classes, with reference to the different kinds of conceptions, 
 which they serve to name. " Many grammarians," says Vossius, 
 
 " and among them some of the highest celebrity, first distribute the 
 noun into proper and appellative, and then into substantive and adjec- 
 tive ; but erroneously ; since even the proper noun is a substantive, 
 inasmuch as it subsists by itself in speech. But let us seek our 
 method from the schools. Our great Stagirite first divides to ov (or 
 that which is) into that which subsists by itself, and is therefore 
 called substance, and that which exists in another as in its subject, 
 and is therefore called attribute. Afterwards he proceeds to distin- 
 guish substance into primary and secondary, the primary being an 
 individual, the secondary a genus or species. By parity of reason, 
 therefore, we should divide the noun first into that which subsists by 
 itself in speech, and is called substantive, and that which needs the 
 addition of a substantive in speech, and is called adjective ; and after- 
 wards we should distribute the substantive into that which belongs 
 to a single thing, and is called proper, and that which comprehends 
 many, and is commonly called appellative" 
 
 2. E 
 
50 OF NOUNS. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 Conceptions 121. The distribution proposed by Vossius seems most consonant 
 minuted. to grammatical principle. I therefore begin with distinguishing sub- 
 stantives from adjectives, and I call them both Nouns ; for they are 
 both names of conceptions, and they are nothing more. They do not 
 imply any assertion respecting these conceptions ; and herein they are 
 clearly distinguished from verbs. It is true that the adjective agrees 
 with the verb in expressing, not substance, but attribute ; and there- 
 fore it is, that Harris, and some other grammarians, rank these 
 two classes of words together under the title of attributives. I 
 do not deny that this arrangement is so far correct ; but I say that it 
 interferes with the method which I conceive it advisable to pursue, 
 as the most direct and scientific. As 'Vossius justly postpones the 
 consideration of the classes of substantives, to the distinction between 
 substance and attribute ; so I postpone the consideration of the 
 assertion of an attribute, to the consideration of those conceptions 
 both of substance and of attribute, which must necessarily precede all 
 assertion. This, I apprehend, is strictly the order of science. Lan- 
 guage is a communication of the mind ; the mind, as far as it is capa- 
 ble of communication, consists of thoughts and feelings. Thoughts 
 are formed by the reasoning power. The reasoning power is divided 
 into three faculties, conception, assertion, and conclusion ; but con- 
 ception necessarily precedes assertion, because we cannot assert that 
 anything exists, until we know what that thing is. 
 
 122. Conceptions are either conceptions of substance, that is of 
 something considered as subsisting of itself, or conceptions of attri- 
 bute, that is of something considered as a quality or property of a 
 substance. It may appear unnecessary to dwell on a distinction so 
 obvious. , No man, it may be said, however ignorant, can suppose 
 that in the phrase " a white horse," the word " white " does not 
 denote a quality belonging to the " horse ;" or that in the phrase 
 " glorious victory," the word " glorious " does not denote a quality 
 belonging to victory. No man, when he says " the sun is shining," 
 thinks of the sun as an attribute of shining ; but, on the contrary, he 
 considers "shining" to be an energy, or property, or quality, or 
 attribute of the sun. This is no doubt true ; but unfortunately there 
 have been writers in modern times, who have treated the distinction 
 in question as a " technical impertinence," and as resting on " false 
 philosophy, and obscure because mistaken metaphysics ;" and it there- 
 fore becomes necessary to examine the arguments on which their 
 objection is founded. 
 Substantive? 123. It has been contended that " the substantive and adjective are 
 Actives frequently convertible without the smallest change of meaning" and in 
 proof of this, it is asserted that we may indifferently say " a perverse 
 nature," or a " natural perversity;" now surely, although I would not 
 assert, that the person advancing such an illustration was altogether 
 of " a perverse nature," I might without offence attribute his opinion, 
 on this particular point, to a little " natural perversity." In the one 
 
 not con- 
 vertible, 
 
CHAP. IV.] OF NOUNS. 51 
 
 case, the friends of the person in question would understand me to Substantives 
 assert, that his whole mind was tainted with the vices of obstinacy Adjectives 
 and self-willedness, that he wilfully shut his eyes against the truth, vertibfe. 
 and maintained opinions which he knew to be wrong in literature, in 
 philosophy, in politics, and in religion — a description of his character, 
 which would naturally occasion them to take great offence. In the 
 other case, they would understand me to give him credit for such 
 reading and literary acquirements, as might well have corrected what 
 I look upon as an error ; and they could hardly take it amiss that I 
 attributed that error, rather to a slight defect, from which the best 
 natures are not wholly exempt, than to gross ignorance, or total want 
 of understanding. So much for the particular expressions quoted as 
 proof that substantives and adjectives may be convertible without the 
 smallest change of meaning : on the other hand, the well-known 
 instance of a " chesnut horse," and a " horse chesnut," affords an 
 example of a change of meaning produced by such convertibility, 
 scarcely less ludicrous, than rendering into English the miles gloriosus 
 of Plautus by the phrase " military glory." The fact is, that in all 
 such instances, the views taken by the mind are different, according 
 as it regards the one conception, or the other, as principal ; just as the 
 man who is on the eastern side of the street considers the western to 
 be the opposite side ; whilst he who is on the western side thinks the 
 same of the eastern. We may speak of a "religious life," or of 
 " vital religion." In the one case, we are considering the conception 
 of " life," as that which must necessarily form the basis of our asser- 
 tion, and which may be differently viewed, according as it is put in 
 connexion with the conceptions of religion, irreligion, business, 
 pleasure, or the like : in the other case, we take the conception of 
 " religion " as the direct object of thought, and then limit it by the 
 conception of life, or vitality. 
 
 124. It is objected, that this limitation may as regularly be effected Sentence 
 by a substantive as by an adjective ; and that " man's life," or " the complex. 8 
 life of man " is exactly equivalent to " human life ;" which I by no 
 means deny ; but then it must be observed, that the sentence takes a 
 different form, and instead of simple becomes complex ; the termination 
 ('s) or the word (of) signifies " possession," or " belonging to," and 
 renders one sentence resolvable into two. For instance, the propo- 
 sition " the life of man is precious," includes two propositions — 
 
 1. Life belongs to, or is possessed by, man. 
 
 2. Life is precious. 
 
 Dr. Wallis, indeed, in his valuable English Grammar, first published 
 in 1653, treats the genitive "man's" as an adjective. He says, 
 " Adjectivum possessivum fit a quo vis substantivo (sive singulari, sive 
 
 plurali) addito s ut man's nature, the nature of man, natura 
 
 humana vel hominis ; men's nature, the nature of men, natura humana 
 vel hominum." But no other grammarian has adopted this notion, 
 
 e2 
 
52 OF NOUNS. [chap. IV. 
 
 and the principle on which it rests, would equally go to prove that 
 all the oblique cases of substantives, in all languages, should be con- 
 sidered as adjectives ; for Mr. Tooke has justly observed, that these 
 cases cannot stand alone ; although he has not noticed that this is 
 owing to the complexity of the sentences in which they are used. 
 theory > . oke ' s 125. The last-mentioned writer contends, that " the adjective is 
 equally and altogether as much the name of a thing, as the noun sub- 
 stantive." If he means by thing, a conception of the mind, he is per- 
 fectly right ; but if he means by thing, an external substance, such as 
 " a horse," or " a man," or "the globe of the sun," or "a grain of 
 the light dust of the balance," he is as clearly wrong. " Red" and 
 " white," " soft" and " hard," " good" and " bad," " virtuous" and 
 " wicked," do not represent any such things as the latter ; but they 
 do represent conceptions of the mind, some of which conceptions may 
 be considered as belonging exclusively to external bodies, others as 
 belonging exclusively to mental existence, and others as common to 
 both. Mr. Tooke says, he has " confuted the account given of the 
 adjective by Messrs. de Port Royal," who " make substance and acci- 
 dent the foundation of the difference between substantive and adjec- 
 tive ;" but if so, he has confuted an account given not only by Messrs. 
 de Port Royal, but by every grammarian who preceded them from 
 the time of Aristotle; and whatever respect may be due to the 
 abilities of Mr. Tooke, I must a little hesitate to think that he alone 
 was right, and that so many men of extensive reading, deep reflection, 
 and sound judgment, were all wrong. But how has he confuted this 
 doctrine ? Why, truly, by showing that when a conception is not 
 regarded as a substance, it may be regarded as an attribute ; and when 
 it is not regarded as an attribute, it may be regarded as a substance. 
 — " There is not any accident whatever," says he, " which has not a 
 grammatical substantive for its sign, when it is not attributed ; nor is 
 there any substance whatever which may not have a grammatical 
 adjective for its sign, when there is occasion to attribute it ; " which is 
 pretty much like saying, there is not any captain whatever who may 
 not be degraded, and placed in the ranks ; nor any private soldier 
 whatever who may not be raised from the ranks and honoured with a 
 captain's commission; and therefore there is no difference between a 
 captain and a private soldier. The premises are incontestable : the 
 only fault is, that they have nothing to do with the conclusion. On 
 this point, I trust, I have satisfactorily vindicated the principle laid 
 down by Aristotle, and adopted by all grammarians from his time to 
 that of Mr. Tooke, viz., that the noun substantive is the name of a 
 conception, considered as possessing a substantial, that is, independent 
 existence ; the noun adjective is the name of a conception, considered 
 as a quality, or attribute of the former. 
 
( 53 ) 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. 
 
 126. The accounts given by different writers of trie noun substantive Various 
 are remarkably different. According to Tooke, it would seem, that e tlons " 
 with exception of the verb (if even that be excepted) the noun sub- 
 stantive is to be considered as the only part of speech ; whilst a 
 recent writer (Mr. Kavanagh) says " there are no such words as sub- 
 stantives," and he afterwards maintains that the words called sub- 
 stantives are " adjectives in the fourth degree of comparison." Harris, 
 Lowth, S. Johnson, L. Murray and others, consider the substantive as 
 the only noun ; Vossius and most earlier writers consider, as I have 
 done, that the term noun comprehends both substantive and adjective. 
 In this conflict of opinions, it is no wonder that the various defini- 
 tions of substantive, or noun substantive, are not easily reconcilable 
 together. Frischlin says it is a noun of one, or at most two genders, 
 in contradistinction to a noun adjective, which has three. This defi- 
 nition has nothing to do with Universal Grammar ; and is not cor- 
 rect, even in the Latin language, to which he refers. A. Caucius 
 defines a substantive that which signifies something by itself, " quod 
 aliquod per se significat." But this definition may as well be applied 
 to adjectives, verbs, or pronouns, and even to interjections, which by 
 themselves signify emotion, if nothing else. Vossius says, " That is 
 called a substantive which subsists by itself, in a sentence" — " sub- 
 stautivum dicitur quod per se subsistit, in oratione." Harris speaks 
 thus : " Substantives are all those principal words, which are signi- 
 ficant of substances considered as substances." Lowth says, " A sub- 
 stantive is the name of a thing, of whatever we' conceive in any way 
 to subsist, or of which we have any notion." And Dr. Johnson de- 
 fines substantive, " a noun betokening the thing, not a quality." 
 
 127. In each of the four last-mentioned definitions there is an ap- New 
 proach to accuracy, but neither of them is entirely satisfactory. It is JropoSd! 
 proper to observe, with Vossius, that the grammatical character of a 
 word is not necessarily attached to its sound, but to the function which 
 it performs in a sentence. Particular languages indeed may appropriate 
 certain forms to certain parts of speech, and therefore in the dictionaries 
 of such languages we find words marked as substantives, adjectives, 
 adverbs, &c; as, in Latin, Dominus is a substantive, jiebilis an ad- 
 jective, prudenter an adverb : and these words cannot be used other- 
 wise in that language ; but this is matter of particular Grammar, and 
 not of universal. Again, we must agree with Harris, that substantives 
 signify substances considered as substances; but it must be remem- 
 
Kinds of 
 Substantives 
 
 54 OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. [CHAP. V. 
 
 bered that the significance is not always direct. The word signifies 
 primarily the conception, and if that conception be of an external 
 object, the word signifies that object secondarily. Lowth introduces 
 in his definition the word " Thing," which is equivocal ; but he for- 
 tunately adds, by way of interpretation, " whatever we conceive :" and 
 lastly, Johnson, who also employs the doubtful word " Thing," 
 limits it, by adding that substantive does not betoken a quality. 
 From all these considerations taken together, a noun substantive may 
 not improperly be defined " a word employed in a sentence to name 
 a conception, existing separately, and not involved as a quality in any 
 other conception." 
 Distribution 128. This definition will lead to a distribution of substantives ac- 
 Substantives. cording to their differences essential or accidental. The essential 
 differences exist in all languages, and may be classed under the heads 
 of kind and of gradation : the accidental differences vary, as to their 
 mode of expression, in different languages, and these include differ- 
 ences of number, gender, and relation. 
 
 129. The kinds of nouns substantive are differently considered by 
 different grammarians. According to Harris, there are three sorts (01 
 kinds) of substantives, representing as many sorts of substances, the 
 natural, the artificial, and the abstract. To the natural (he says) be- 
 long such words as " Animal," " Man," Alexander ; " to the artificial, 
 " Edifice," Palace," " Vatican ;" and to the abstract, " Motion," 
 " Flight," " this or that flight." This distinction, however, rests on 
 no sound grammatical principle. A natural substance indeed may be 
 either a thing or a person, whilst an artificial substance can only be a 
 thing ; but the conception of each is contemplated by the mind as 
 that of an individual substance limited by time and space, and existing 
 out of the mind objectively ; and so far as regards Universal Grammar, 
 both the one and the other sustains the same part in the construction 
 of a sentence ; for we cannot speak of many Alexanders, or many 
 Vaticans, otherwise than by a rhetorical figure of speech. On the 
 other hand, the kinds of substance, which Harris calls natural, ex- 
 pressed by such words as " Animal," " Man," or the artificial, as 
 " Edifice," " Palace," without some definitive word or particle to 
 individualize them, are neither individual things nor persons, and are 
 not limited by time or space, nor have they any objective prototypes 
 in the external world, but they are subjective conceptions of the mind, 
 agreeing, in this respect, with the conceptions expressed by the words 
 " motion " or " flight." 
 Conceptions 130. It is unnecessary here to dwell on various logical distinctions 
 
 bodily and i. -i i -, . i r /• i « • i i 
 
 mental.- applicable to nouns substantive; such as those of words simple and 
 complex," words " of the first intention, and of the second inten- 
 tion," &c. But that difference of substantives, which I mean by the 
 difference of kind, is between their expressing conceptions of bodily 
 impression, and conceptions of mental action. To this, the ancient 
 grammarians Chabjsius and Diomedes alluded, when they defined a 
 
CHAP. V.] OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. 55 
 
 noun a part of speech signifying a thing corporeal or incorporeal, 
 " pars orationis signincans rem corporalem vel incorporalem :" and on 
 this also rests the popular and ordinary distinction between a Thing 
 and a Thought, as well as the more learned distinction between phe- 
 nomena and noumena. This difference of kind, indeed, is denied by 
 some persons to exist. They say that we can have no conceptions 
 but those of bodily impression ; that nouns are only the names of 
 Things ; and that there being (as they think) no incorporeal things 
 existing, or at least none cognizable by human faculties, there cannot 
 be any noun signifying an incorporeal thing. I answer, that Universal 
 Grammar, as I understand it, rejects alike the two extreme theories, 
 that everything is mind, and that everything is matter. It agrees 
 with the common sense, and common experience of mankind, in 
 assuming that there are certain Things, or objects external to us, and 
 certain Thoughts, or mental acts, which we experience internally. Of 
 both these, the human mind forms conceptions : and to conceptions of 
 each kind names are attached, which names, when the conceptions are 
 contemplated as existing substantially, are nouns substantive. 
 
 131. Those nouns substantive, which simply express conceptions Substantives 
 of things external to us are necessarily particular ; those which ex- Smo? 
 press mental acts, whether employed on the generalization of external 
 
 things, or on the internal operations of the mind, are either general or 
 universal. Alexander was a particular human being, and the Vatican 
 is a particular building ; but the word Conqueror designates a general 
 conception of the mind applicable to Alexander and many other 
 human beings, and the word Palace designates a conception of the 
 mind applicable to the Vatican and many other buildings. Hence 
 arises the ordinary distinction of grammarians between nouns sub- 
 stantive proper, and common, or, as some say, proper and appellative; 
 a distinction marked by Varro with the terms nomina and vocabula, 
 and answering to the logical distinction of words singular and com- 
 mon. 
 
 132. A noun substantive proper is a name of the conception of a Substantives 
 particular Thing. It must be remembered that our English word proper -' 
 
 " Thing " may be used in different senses, and particularly in two, 
 viz., first, as any external object contradistinguished to " Thought ;" 
 and secondly, as an external object not personal, contradistinguished 
 to " Person." I here use it in the former sense, including either an 
 inanimate mass, for instance Mount Etna, or a person, for instance 
 William the Conqueror. Every such particular thing, whether viewed 
 as present, remembered as past, or imagined as possible, is considered 
 to be always identical. Etna is, to the present gaze, the same vast 
 mountain mass, which has towered over the surrounding region for 
 ages beyond historical record ; William lives, in memory, as the same 
 bold warrior, who nearly eight centuries ago won the battle of Hastings, 
 and with it the crown of England ; and so long as our language lasts, 
 even the fictitious Hamlet will remain the same wondrous creature of 
 
56 OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. [cHAP. V. 
 
 the mighty dramatist's imagination, as when he fiist formed it from 
 his rude materials. I say, the noun substantive proper is the name 
 not of a thing, but of the conception of a thing ; for though it would 
 be an idle scepticism to doubt whether such a mountain as Etna 
 exists, or whether such a warrior as William the Conqueror ever 
 existed, yet it must be remembered that words (as has before been 
 shown) represent primarily our thoughts, and secondarily the external 
 objects of our thoughts, when any such exist. I speak of Etna such 
 as I conceive it to be, and of William such as I conceive him to have 
 been ; and hence arises one great source of misapprehension among 
 men, when one man has formed a certain conception of a particular 
 thing, and another man has formed of the same particular thing a 
 very different conception. 
 Examples 133. This will be the more obvious, when we consider how our 
 formation, conceptions of particular external objects are formed. They are not 
 stamped on the mind by the objects, as an impression is stamped on 
 wax by a seal ; for, if so, every man's conception of the same object 
 would be precisely the same, which is certainly not the case. But 
 the process which takes place may be thus illustrated. . Let us sup- 
 pose that a lofty mountain existed long ago in Sicily, and still exists 
 there ; and that the first person who gave it the name of Etna had 
 previously seen it ; how came he to give it a name ? Because he 
 had formed a conception of it. And how came he to form such a 
 conception? Because he had seen the mountain, as a distinct, ex- 
 ternal thing. But what is seeing ? An affection of the nerves of the 
 eye. Now it never happens, when we see any one thing distinctly, 
 that it equally affects all the nerves of the eye. Therefore, when the 
 " Mountain " was first seen, other things were also seen. What was 
 it that distinguished these different affections of the eye into marks, 
 signs, or thoughts of different things ? What was it that made the 
 " Mountain," in particular, a thing, in the contemplation of the think- 
 ing faculty. Could such an effect have been produced otherwise than 
 by an act of the thinking faculty itself? And if this was an act of 
 the thinking faculty, then the thought was parent of the thing, so far, 
 at least, as grammar can have anything to do with it, namely, as 
 capable of being known to the mind, and communicable by language. 
 Let us pursue this investigation a little further. The word " Moun- 
 tain " does not signify a thing only seen at one moment of our lives : 
 let us suppose, then, that we do in fact see the same mountain several 
 times ; it must necessarily happen, that we see it under very different 
 circumstances. As. we approach to, or recede from it, every step 
 makes it affect the eye differently, both as to form and colour. What 
 is it that still makes us consider the cause of these different impres- 
 sions as one thing ? Plainly the thinking faculty ; so that here again, 
 and in a second degree, the thought is parent of the thing ; and, be it 
 observed, that it is not until after this secondary process has been 
 oftentimes repeated, that we give the thing a name. Now, what are 
 
CHAP. V.] OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. 57 
 
 the acts of the thinking faculty, by which we form the conception of 
 this external object as one thing ? The applying to it certain laws 
 of the mind, which enable us to discriminate not only between 
 thoughts, but between things. By certain laws of the mind we know 
 that an object subtending a given angle at a given distance is of a cer- 
 tain altitude. The law may not be distinctly contemplated by us, 
 but it so far governs our judgments that we must approximate to it 
 more or less ; we cannot think the directly contrary. In like manner 
 the laws of similarity, of contrast, of association, &c, enable us to say 
 that the top of the mountain is white with snow, or tinged with a 
 roseate hue from the beams of dawn, that the sides are dark with 
 groves of ilex, the lower declivities bright with verdure; and by 
 another law of our nature, we know that all these and numberless 
 other impressions of sense are bound up together in one vast mate- 
 rial mass forming the particular object, which we call by the proper 
 name of Etna. 
 
 134. It has been truly observed by Mr. Locke, that "it is im- ^ e JJ™ e * 
 possible that every particular thing should have a distinct peculiar language, 
 name ; for the signification and use of words depending on that con- 
 nection which the mind makes between its internal operations and the 
 
 sounds which it uses as signs of them, it is necessary, in the applica- 
 tion of names to things, that the mind should have distinct conceptions 
 of the things, and retain also the particular name that belongs to 
 every one, with its peculiar appropriation to that conception. But 
 it is beyond the power of human capacity to frame and retain distinct 
 conceptions of all the particular things we meet with ; every bird and 
 beast men saw, every tree and plant that affected the senses, could not 
 find a place in the most capacious understanding. If it be looked on 
 as an instance of a prodigious memory, that some generals have been 
 able to call every soldier in their army by his proper name, we may 
 easily find a reason why men have never attempted to give names to 
 each sheep in their flock, or crow that flies over their heads, much less 
 to call every leaf of plants, or grain of sand, that came in their way, 
 by a peculiar name." So far Mr. Locke, in which quotation I have only 
 taken the liberty to substitute for the word ideas, in one place internal 
 operations, and in two others conceptions. The reasoning, however, is 
 not affected by this change, and it is such reasoning as must carry 
 conviction to every mind. I also agree fully with this writer, that to 
 name every particular thing, if possible, would be useless for the 
 purpose of communicating thought, unless every man could first teach 
 the whole of his own endless vocabulary to every other man with 
 whom he conversed, or for whose information he wrote. And again, 
 supposing even this possible, it would not conduce at all to science ; 
 for as Aristotle has said, " of particular things there is neither defini- 
 tion nor demonstration, and consequently no science, since all definition 
 is in its nature universal." 
 
 135. Proper names are therefore comparatively few in number. ^^J mes 
 They serve to denote a very small part of the immense multitude of common. 
 
58 OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. [CHAP. V. 
 
 particular objects which fall under our observation. Some of these, 
 indeed, obtain a distinguished celebrity within a small circle ; they 
 are 
 
 Talked of far and near at home. 
 
 But the poet, the orator, or the historian, may raise them to a prouder 
 eminence. He may render them the symbols or representatives of 
 the classes to which they belong. It is thus that " Alexander" 
 becomes the synonym of a conqueror, and " Cicero" of an orator. 
 Even proper names, however, have in general been given to indivi- 
 duals from some quality or action not strictly peculiar to them. 
 Hence the old English rhyme alluded to by Verstegan, in relation to 
 the family name of Smith — 
 
 Whence cometh Smith, albe he knight or squire, 
 But from the Smith, that smiteth at the tire ? 
 
 Nevertheless it must be admitted, that the common notion is soon 
 lost in the particular application. Few people reflect, that George 
 originally signified " a husbandman," or that Charles and Andrew 
 both signified " manly" or " strong," the former from its Gothic, the 
 latter from its Grecian etymology. These names have now come to 
 indicate individuals ; and as even thus a single word is not found to 
 answer the purpose sufficiently, we have the baptismal name and sur- 
 name ; as the Romans had the prcenomen, the cognomen, and the 
 agnomen. 
 
 Common 136. The designation of common is usuallv given by Grammarians 
 
 to all nouns substantive, except the proper. Consequently, under 
 this term, common, are included alike words answering to general and 
 to universal conceptions ; but these two classes I think it advisable 
 to consider separately; as well because the distinction is in itself 
 extremely important ; as because different writers have employed the 
 terms expressing it in very different ways. Locke, for instance, calls 
 all common nouns " general words." Harris uses the words 
 " general and universal " as synonymous ; for he calls all common sub- 
 stances " symbols of general or universal ideas." Other writers 
 employ the term " universal" alone (including general) as the contra 
 exponent to particular. 
 
 General^ 137. Those nouns substantive which correspond to general concep- 
 
 tions are names imposed on whole classes of individual substances, as 
 Man, House, Mountain; all of which, notwithstanding each may 
 have its peculiar qualities, agree in possessing some one or more dis- 
 tinctive qualities. Mr. Locke says truly of these words, that they are 
 " the inventions and creatures of the understanding ;" for it is no 
 doubt a mental act which makes the word " Man" stand for Peter, 
 James, John, and millions of other individuals, past, present, future 
 and even imaginary. " Ay," says Macbeth to the murderers — 
 
 Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men ; 
 As hounds and greyhounds, mungrels, spaniels, curs, 
 Shoughs, water-rugs, and demi-wolves are cleped 
 All by the name of dogs. 
 
 Substantives. 
 
 Substantives. 
 
CHAP. V.] OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. 59 
 
 Yet the word " Man" or " Dog" alone would not designate this or 
 that man or dog, without some addition which will presently be 
 noticed. 
 
 138. Nor is it only to classes of corporeal substances that such Corporeal 
 nouns are applicable ; for it must be remembered that by the word incorporeal 
 " substance," grammatically speaking, we mean not merely a material 
 and bodily substance, which we can see, or handle, or weigh, or 
 measure; but also any mental conception considered as having an 
 independent and separate existence, and of which something may be 
 affirmed or denied substantively, that is, without reference to any 
 other tiling as its basis and necessary support. Nouns of this sort, 
 therefore, form the great bulk of language ; since they comprehend 
 not only such words, as man, house, mountain, or animal, plant, 
 ship ; but also such as affection, thought, passion, delight, when 
 spoken of as individuals of a class of particular conceptions. Thus 
 Spenser says — 
 
 What war so cruel, or what siege so sore, 
 As that which strong Affections do apply- 
 
 So Coleridge 
 
 Against the fort of Eeason ? 
 
 All Thoughts, all Passions, all Delights, 
 
 Whatever stirs this mortal frame, 
 All are but ministers of Love. 
 
 139. Such words are formed by the process of generalisation de- ^particulars, 
 scribed in a former chapter, and though they thus obtain a general 
 signification, they are easily made to express a particular conception, 
 
 or a number of particulars, by adding to them a definitive, or numeral, 
 or an attribute, as " that Mountain," " these sza? men," " the ruling 
 passion," " the domestic affections." On the other hand, they cannot 
 form the subject of any proposition absolutely and universally true, 
 however nearly it may approach to the truth. Thus it may seem at 
 first sight that Hamlet's mother utters an universal truth, when she 
 says to her son — 
 
 Thou know'st 'tis common : all that live must die. 
 
 But the instances of Enoch and Elijah destroy the universality of the 
 proposition ; and even if no such instances had occurred hitherto, it 
 would not necessarily follow, that some such might not occur here- 
 after. Indeed, St. Paul expressly says, " we shall not all sleep," 
 (meaning, die,) " but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the 
 twinkling of an eye, at the last trump." 
 
 140. The other class of nouns substantive common, namely, those Universal 
 which correspond (as I maintain) to universal conceptions, have given conce P tlou * 
 occasion to great diversities of opinion. To this class belong such 
 
 words as " Flight," " Whiteness," " Temperance," " Motion," 
 " Colour," " Virtue," when not used as individuals of a class. These 
 Harris considers as expressing " abstract substances," or as others 
 say " abstract ideas," and Johnson calls them " abstract names.' 1 
 
some 
 Absti 
 Ideas, 
 
 60 OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. [CHAP. V. 
 
 But the term " abstract" in these expressions is of equivocal signifi- 
 cation. By some, as has been before observed, abstraction is ex- 
 plained as a process of generalisation, by which the same attribute 
 being found to exist in many substances is contemplated as one sub- 
 stance, forming as it were a part of each, just as a substance called 
 saccharine forms part of the sugar-cane, and of various other plants, 
 and may therefore give name to them as a class. Harris explains it 
 somewhat differently as a refined operation of the mind, by which we 
 abstract any attribute from its necessary subject, and consider it apart, 
 devoid of its dependence. I do not deny the possibility of either of 
 these operations ; but they do not explain the real character of the 
 class of nouns under consideration, namely,' their universality. White- 
 ness is so called, not because it is found to exist in snow, or in lilies, or 
 in the foam of the sea, or in all these alike, but because it expresses 
 the result of a certain physical law, which would exist if snow had 
 never fallen, nor lilies blossomed, nor the sea cast up its foam. Tem- 
 perance is a moral habit, and might be contemplated as such by a 
 person who had unfortunately passed his whole life among gluttons 
 and drunkards. And similar observations might be made on the 
 other words of this class above quoted, 
 called by 141. Certain modern writers have treated the nouns here called 
 
 Attract universal, in a way which, I own, I cannot well understand. M. 
 Condillac, for instance, supposes them to serve the purpose of what 
 he calls " abstract ideas;" for he says that " abstract ideas are only 
 denominations." On this notion, Mr. Tooke enlarges at great length. 
 His several chapters on abstraction, which abound with much curious 
 etymology, occupy above 400 quarto pages, in the course of which 
 he is pleased to inform his readers, that " heaven and hell" are 
 " merely participles poetically embodied and substantiated." What 
 practical inference is to be drawn from this statement, I know not ; 
 but Mr. Tooke's doctrine, so far as it relates to the nouns called 
 abstract, appears to me confused and contradictory. It may be stated. 
 I think, in the following propositions : — 
 
 1. The verb is the noun, and something more (vol. ii. p. 514). 
 
 2. The adjective is the noun, directed to be joined to another noun 
 (vol. ii. p. 431). 
 
 3. The participle is the verb adjectived, i. e. " it has all that the 
 noun adjective has, and for the same reason, viz. for the purpose of 
 adjection" (vol. ii. p. 468). 
 
 4. The abstract nouns " are generally participles or adjectives used 
 without any substantive to which they can be joined" (vol. ii. p. 17). 
 
 The result of this seems to be, that when an abstract noun is a 
 participle (as Mr. Tooke says heaven is) it is a noun and something 
 more, converted into a noun directed to be joined to another noun, but 
 used without any noun to which it can be joined. How far this mode of 
 reasoning goes to show that there are not in the mind any such ideas, 
 as " whiteness," " strength," " virtue," and the like ; or that these 
 
CHAP. V.] OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. CI 
 
 words do not serve to communicate anything but conceptions of solid, 
 tangible, corporeal, substance, in an abbreviated form, must be left 
 to the determination of the judicious reader ; for my own part, I 
 cannot see that it tends much to enlighten what may be thought ob- 
 scure, in the works of the ancient grammarians ; still less does it 
 appear to me to cast a doubt on those principles, which the ancients 
 have stated with great clearness and precision. 
 
 142. An universal conception, as I have before said, is an Idea, in Ideas - 
 the true and proper sense of that word ; a word which was used by 
 Plato, and according to him by his great instructor Socrates, to express 
 
 a Law of our conceptions, a Form which they must necessarily take, 
 or to which they must at least make some approach, before they can 
 be at all distinguished the one from the other. These laws are im- 
 pressed on the mind of man in the same manner as the laws of 
 vitality, of growth, and of varied action, are impressed on his bodily 
 organs; that is to say, they exist from the first ^ moment of birth as 
 faculties not yet put in action, and in that sense not innate, but 
 capable, from the first, of development, each in its order and degree, 
 and in that sense innate. 
 
 So from the root 
 
 Springs lighter the green stalk, from thence the leaves 
 
 More airy, last the bright consummate flovv'r 
 
 Spirits odorous breathes. 
 
 Hence ideas were termed by the Stoics \6yoi atrip par ikoX, 
 seminal reasons, or forms, of all natural things. So Cudworth says, 
 that " the cognoscitive power of the mind contains within itself vir- 
 tually, as the future plant is contained in the seed, general notions, 
 which unfold or discover themselves, as proper circumstances occur." 
 So Leibnitz says, " the germs of our acquired knowledge, or in other 
 words, our Ideas and the eternal truths resulting from them, are con- 
 tained in the mind itself; nor ought we to be surprised at this ; for 
 if we examine our own consciousness, we shall find that we possess 
 in ourselves the ideas of existence, of unity, of substance, of action, and 
 all other ideas of the like nature." And so Thomson speaks of the 
 
 ■ Seeds of art deep in the mind 
 
 Implanted. 
 
 143. This analogy, which from its truthfulness has struck so many ^Luve 
 individuals, suggests several important considerations regarding the 
 class of conceptions in question. It intimates that, as on the one 
 hand, the vivifying and shaping power, which gives form to our 
 thoughts, is no material quality drawn by the organs of sense from 
 surrounding objects, but an intangible and invisible principle in the 
 mind itself; so, on the other hand, that principle may long remain 
 inactive, and unfelt, whilst — 
 
 In th' unconscious breast 
 
 Sleep the lethargic powers. 
 And yet it may be preserved 
 
 Pure in the last recesses of the mind, 
 
62 
 
 OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. 
 
 Laws 
 
 regulating 
 conceptions. 
 
 Transcen- 
 dental 
 conceptions. 
 
 [chap. V, 
 
 and ready to burst forth into noble thoughts and high actions, under 
 the invigorating impulses of the outward world. The human mind 
 w r as not intended by its divine Creator, to exist in a perpetual state of 
 solitary contemplation, or amid dreams and phantoms of its own 
 creating, but to act and be acted on, to influence and be influenced by 
 the scenes and beings amidst which it is placed. 
 
 144. In the threefold nature of man, spiritual, intellectual, and 
 corporeal, the laws which regulate conceptions, and give them their 
 appropriate forms, belong to the intellectual power, which we com- 
 monly call reason ; but those laws and forms may be applied to 
 objects as w r ell spiritual or corporeal, as intellectual. In those of 
 mere intellect, indeed, their nature is most' obvious, and particularly 
 in mathematical conceptions. Every one, who knows anything of 
 Geometry, must at once perceive that the pure idea of a circle, can 
 only exist in the mind, that it is true, necessary, absolute, universal, 
 and entirely independent of the question of fact, whether any man 
 ever did, or ever can receive the sensible impression of a perfect 
 circle. And the more we dwell on this idea, the more plainly we 
 perceive, that it not only is not furnished to the mind by the senses, 
 but is directly opposed to what is commonly regarded as the evidence 
 of the senses, for both the radius and the periphery are lines which 
 have length without breadth ; the centre is a point which has neither 
 parts nor magnitude, which terminates innumerable radii without 
 being a part of any one of them, and which must remain at absolute 
 rest, though the other extremity of a radius proceeding from it should 
 move with incalculable rapidity round the whole circumference. 
 Nevertheless it has been by applying these and similar ideas to 
 sensible objects, that a great proportion of the physical sciences 
 and arts have reached that high degree of perfection to which they 
 have at present attained. 
 
 145. Universal conceptions of the highest order have been termed 
 transcendental. This designation was confined by the old logicians 
 to six conceptions, Ens, Res, aliquid, unum, verum, bonum ; but it is 
 extended by other writers to all conceptions, understood to exist 
 a priori, that is prior to their application to sensible impressions. 
 That the human mind has a power of forming such conceptions, by 
 its very nature, has been admitted to a greater or less extent, and 
 expressed in various terms, by philosophers of all ages, countries, 
 and sects. I have mentioned Plato and the Stoics. St. Augustin 
 called them "innate notions;" Cardinal Cusanus, " concreated 
 judgments;" Ficinus, "notions of the divine mind;" Melanc- 
 thon, " innate fixed points," and " principles of knowledge ; " Lord 
 Bacon, "essential forms," and "ideas of the divine mind;" Sir 
 K. Digby, " universal notions ; " Spinosa, "modes of thinking;" 
 Leibnitz, "necessary truths;" Kant, "Notions of the Eeason," 
 " Transcendentes," and " Noumena ;" Dugald Stewart, "intuitive 
 truths ; " AbercPvOMBIE, " First Truths," and " intuitive articles of 
 
CHAP. V.] OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. 63 
 
 belief;" Coleridge "necessities of the mind" and "forms of 
 thinking, which though first revealed to us by experience, must yet 
 have pre-existed in order to make experience itself possible ;" and 
 Whewell " fundamental ideas," from which he considers "ideal 
 conceptions " to be derived. Nor among the ingenious physiologists 
 of the present day are there wanting authorities for the same doctrine. 
 Professor Muller says, " that innate Ideas may exist, cannot, in the 
 slightest degree, be denied." Mr. Mayo says, " certain Truths may 
 be called intuitive" And Mr. Green, in his Hunterian Oration of 
 1840, describes Ideas, as "principles, which give to the results of 
 sensuous experience their connexion and intelligibility" — "powers 
 predetermining and constructive" — " intelligential acts." 
 
 146. The doctrine of Ideas, as first taught by Plato, and after- §£*££ 
 wards (though less clearly) by his scholar Aristotle, continued to 
 prevail with the great majority of philosophers throughout Europe, 
 
 till within less than two centuries ago. The successive theories, by 
 which it was to a great degree superseded, were these : — 
 
 1. That Ideas are not acts of the mind, but separate and 
 
 distinct objects which it perceives. 
 
 2. That Ideas comprise all our thoughts. 
 
 3. That Ideas (i. e. all our thoughts) are derived partly from 
 
 sensation, and partly from reflection. 
 
 4. That Ideas of reflection are mere transcripts or combina- 
 
 tions of sensations. 
 
 5. That both sensations and reflections are mere bodily acts. 
 
 147. The first and apparently most simple notion of thoughts, pro- ^ou$hteand 
 posed as a philosophical theory, was that they were a kind of airy the same, 
 shapes detached from external bodies, and conveyed through the 
 
 senses to the mind, as Lucretius assures us — 
 
 And again- 
 
 quaa rerum simulacra yocanras, 
 
 Quae quasi membranse surnmo de corpore rerum 
 Dereptae volitant. 
 
 Quippe etiam multo magis hsec sunt tenuia textu, 
 Quam quae percutiunt oculos visumque lacessant ; 
 Corporis hasc quoniam penetrant per rara, cientque 
 Tenuem animi naturam intus. 
 
 But this was directly contrary to the doctrine both of Plato and 
 Aristotle, the latter of whom says, 'E7rt per yap rdv avev vXt]g, to 
 clvto kgi to rosy kcli votjfievop, ' in incorporeal existences, the thinking 
 faculty and the thought are the same thing." Descartes and others, 
 who rejected the gross fiction of forms emanating from external 
 bodies, held, nevertheless, an opinion equally irreconcilable with the 
 doctrines of Plato and Aristotle, viz., that an idea is a substance 
 separate from the mind ; that the mind can only receive it passively, 
 contemplate it as the eye contemplates a picture, or work after it as 
 the hand works after a model. " In every exercise of the mind" 
 (says Tucker) " that which discerns is numerically and substantially 
 
64 OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. [CHAP. V* 
 
 ?J\ eories of different from that which is discerned." Whether this proposition be 
 true or false, is a plain question of fact, which every human being 
 can determine, if, without being led away by prevalent expressions, 
 such as " abstract ideas," " association of ideas," or the like, he will 
 calmly and quietly appeal to his own internal experience. Are my 
 thoughts different from myself? or are they my own acts? And if 
 they are my own acts (which was the doctrine of Plato and Aristotle), 
 then are they wholly capricious and accidental, or are there any laws 
 by which they must be more or less strictly governed ? any forms, 
 which they must more or less exactly assume ? If there be such laws 
 and forms of the mind, as all admit that there are of objects in the 
 external world ; if we can no more believe that a square is a circle, 
 or a triangle a parallelogram, than we can that the sound of a flute 
 is the pain of the gout, or that a grain of wheat sown in the earth 
 will grow up an elephant ; then those laws are ideas, by which every 
 one must be consciously or unconsciously governed in the exercise of 
 his mental powers ; and which are universally, necessarily, and ab- 
 solutely true, whether or not the circumstances, in which an indi- 
 vidual is placed, require him to call them into action. 
 
 Locke's 148. Nothing; however contributed so effectuallv to pervert the 
 
 ■pprvftrsion 
 
 otthe knowledge of this most important part of our mental constitution, as 
 the very vague use made of the term idea in Mr. Locke's work on 
 the Human Understanding. By employing it for all modes and forms 
 of thought without distinction, he introduced into the philosophy of 
 the human mind much the same sort of confusion as a mathematician 
 would into geometry, who should inform his pupils that all figures 
 are circles; and that though Euclid had given that name only to 
 figures possessing certain well-defined properties, no regard should be 
 paid to his doctrines, nor any distinction made between curvilinear 
 and rectilinear figures. Unfortunately for us in England certain ex- 
 traneous circumstances procured for Mr. Locke's book, at its first 
 appearance, a popularity certainly not due either to its style or 
 matter : and the consequences have been, first, that the original 
 meaning of the term idea has been totally mistaken ; and secondly, 
 that the word has obtained the most vague acceptation of any word 
 in our language. It has been supposed that Plato meant by it an 
 image, something like the simulacra of Lucretius. On this assump- 
 tion, Dr. Johnson, as we are told by Boswell, " was particularly 
 indignant at the use of the word Idea, in the sense of Notion or 
 Opinion, thinking it clear, that idea could only signify something of 
 which an Image can be formed in the mind." So, Abraham 
 Tucker says, " an idea is with respect to things in general, what an 
 Image is with respect to objects of sight." And David Hume says, 
 " nothing can be present to the mind but an Image or perception ; 
 and the senses are the only channels destined to receive (and convey) 
 such images." These supposed mental images answer much more 
 nearly to the (payraajjiaTa of Plato, and are totally different from 
 
CHAP, V.J OF XOUXS SUBSTANTIVE. 65 
 
 ideas, which belong to the class of No^ara ; the former being 
 particular creations of the fancy, the latter universal laws of the in- 
 tellect. As to the popular use of Idea, for thought, notion, belief, 
 conjecture, and, in short, for almost any vague conception, subjective 
 or objective, if it can be assimilated to any Platonic term, it must be 
 to Sofa, opinion, which, as Plato says, is at best only a medium 
 between knowledge and ignorance — ?/ 6p$r) ^o^afxera^v <f>povr](T£ii)Q 
 kcil afiaQiac. 
 
 149. Mr. Locke certainly did not intend to expunge the notion of Locke's 
 mind from all philosophy. By distributing ideas, as to their origin, materialism. 
 between sensation and reflection, he no doubt meant to imply that 
 
 there was, in the nature of man, an immaterial mind which reflected, 
 as well as a material body which felt ; but the inevitable consequence 
 of his own vague conceptions on the subject was to employ ex- 
 pressions which might be taken in different senses ; and accordingly 
 the materialists, not without a plausible appearance of reason, cited 
 him as a conclusive authority in their favour. Thus Condorcet says, 
 " Locke fat le premier qui prouva que toutes nos idees etaient com- 
 posees de sensations." Locke, at all events, was not the first who main- 
 tained such an opinion. It was clearly that of Epicurus, as set forth 
 by Lucretius, in the introduction to the passage before quoted, — 
 
 Nunc age, qua? moveant anirnum res accipe, et unde 
 
 Qua? veniunt verdant in mentem percipe paucis. 
 
 Montaigne repeats the maxim which he had heard and seems to have 
 approved : — " All knowledge is conveyed to us by the senses ; they 
 are our masters: Science begins by them and is resolved into 
 them."* Hobbes in England and Gassendi in France had held the 
 same vague opinion before Locke's book appeared ; and since Locke's 
 time it has become the distmguishing characteristic of modern 
 mental philosophy, as professed in England by Hartley, Priestley, 
 Darwin, Beddoes, &c, and in France by D'Alembert, Diderot, Con- 
 dillac, Condorcet, &c, until it at length attained its climax in the public 
 atheistical lectures of M. Comte. Happily this extreme proof of the 
 insanity, to which false principles of philosophy eventually lead, has pro- 
 duced in France a reaction in favour of M. Cousin's powerful exertions 
 to restore the writings of Plato to their true place in public estimation. 
 
 150. Universal conceptions, that is to say, ideas, though subjectively classes of 
 existing in, or rather forming the basis of the human mind, are ob- ideas - 
 jectively applicable to spiritual, mental, and corporeal substances ; for 
 
 none of these can be comprehended by the mind otherwise than 
 according to certain laws imposed on them by the Creator, which laws, 
 as felt by the mind, are ideas. Those applicable to spiritual objects 
 are, to us, by far the most interesting and the most important ; but 
 in each class the more profoundly an idea penetrates into the first 
 principles of existence, the more difficult is it for unassisted human 
 faculties to comprehend it, in all its clear and comprehensive certainty ; 
 
 * Montaigne, by Hazlitt, p. 275. 
 2. . F 
 
66 OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. [CHAP. V. 
 
 whilst on the other hand, some faint glimmerings of it are to be per- 
 ceived in the weakest minds ; and there is no human being so con- 
 stituted as clearly to conceive its direct contrary. 
 Transcen- 151. J have said, that in the mind of man the consciousness of 
 
 dental idea ' 
 
 of God. simple existence is the source and necessary condition of all other 
 powers ; and accordingly we find that at the head of the six trans- 
 cendental above mentioned, is placed Ens, " Being." This applies 
 to all objects, spiritual, mental, and corporeal ; but, above all, it 
 applies to the great Ens Entium, the Being of Beings, the Spirit of 
 Spirits, in whom " we live, and move, and have our being." Of all 
 intellectual energies, therefore, that we possess, the most transcendent 
 is that which offers to our finite conception, however imperfectly, the 
 idea of an infinite, spiritual Ruler of the Universe. It has been said 
 by very worthy and pious writers, that " the belief of one Almighty 
 Governor of all things is not an instinctive and universal principle of 
 our nature." Certainly not, if we speak of such an instinct as teaches 
 an insect to fly as soon as its wings are unfolded from their sheath, or 
 such universality as makes human beings of all ages feel the necessity 
 of food and sleep. But this statement is wholly inconclusive, as to 
 the gradual development of ideas in the human mind. It is like 
 saying, that there is no pure idea of a circle ; because a child, in his 
 early notion of roundness, does not reflect on the position of a central 
 point, on the equality of radii, or on that combination of centripetal 
 and centrifugal forces, which produces a circular movement ; or it is 
 like denying that a particular plant has within it a principle of fruc- 
 tification, because it has as yet put forth only leaves, or perhaps is 
 just raising its young stem from the earth. There is not, there can- 
 not be, such a thing as a pure atheist ; but the idea of Deity developes 
 itself in the human mind slowly : it is easily overlaid and perverted by 
 the phantoms of imagination ; and the intellect can make but gradual 
 approaches toward that which, in its brightness, " dark with excess 
 of light," defies human comprehension. The word God, our Teutonic 
 name for this adorable Being, is in its origin synonymous with Good, 
 the idea of which, Plato, in the 6th book of the Republic, makes 
 Socrates declare to be " the -most sublime of all intellectual concep- 
 tions;"* adding moreover to this assertion, the following remarkable 
 words: — " We do not sufficiently know it; but if we were wholly 
 ignorant of it, then although we possessed all other know ledge in the 
 highest degree, it would, without this,, profit us nothing. "f This 
 passage cannot but forcibly bring to mind the expressions of St. Paul, 
 " though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not 
 charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." Yet 
 though goodness (which in human nature the Apostle calls charity,) 
 be in its infinite purity one element of the ineffable idea of the Divinity, 
 
 * 'H <rov dyaSvv 'lltti (j/Xytirrov fAu.§nf£(*. 
 
 J o.utyiv ou% ixavag "iTf/Av, U ii fjb9) tff/itv, ri-viv o\ T-aur'/j: ho ti f/.a.XiffTa tolXXx \<TiffT r Ai' 
 
CHAP. V.] OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. G7 
 
 two other elements are essential to the mental conception of that idea, 
 namely, the elements of infinite Power and infinite Wisdom. And 
 though this be not the place for theological discussion, yet I cannot 
 omit to observe, that many eminent divines have considered these 
 elements of our finite idea of God to indicate respectively the creative 
 Power of the Father, the enlightening Wisdom of the Son, and the 
 enlivening Love of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 152. From that combination of Power, Wisdom, and Goodness, Spiritual idea 
 which, in its perfection, belongs to God alone, flows the spiritual idea otlavv ' 
 
 of Law; which, in its application, comprehends as well " that which 
 God has eternally purposed in all His outward works to observe," as 
 " that which He has set down as expedient to be observed by all His 
 creatures," spiritual, intellectual, and material; and from which all 
 human laws are or ought to be derived. The development of this 
 idea has never been treated with so much depth of thought, or power 
 of language, by any author, ancient or modern, as by our own Eichard 
 Hooker, in his invaluable production, the Ecclesiastical Polity; 
 the first book of which, with equal truth and beauty, thus concludes : 
 " Of Law there can be no less acknowledged, than that her seat is 
 the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world. All things 
 in heaven and earth do her homage, the very least as feeling her care, 
 and the greatest as not exempted from her power ; both angels and 
 men, and creatures of what condition soever, though each in different 
 sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent admiring her, as the 
 mother o£*their peace and joy." Thus may we see, that the more 
 profoundly we meditate on an idea, the more prolific we shall find it 
 to be of new and subordinate ideas, each becoming gradually more 
 luminous and comprehensive, as the parent idea is more distinctly 
 seen and felt ; for while we dwell in awe and admiration on the idea of 
 an Almighty Lawgiver, not only do we obtain more elevated and 
 philosophic views of Law, but new and clearer ideas present them- 
 selves to us of right and wrong, justice and injustice, virtue and vice, 
 order and disorder, with their attendant trains of thought. 
 
 153. The ideas applicable to intellectual objects have been differently ideas of 
 arranged, in the systems of different philosophers ; for instance, in the objects? 
 " Categories " of Aristotle, the " Verstandes-begriffien" of Kant, and 
 
 the " Fundamental Ideas " and " Ideal Conceptions " of Dr. Whewell. 
 Aristotle mixes together those which relate to Space and Time, with 
 others which are more clearly intellectual. Kant, properly as it seems 
 to me, separates the former from the latter, inasmuch as space and 
 time imply the existence of an external world, whereas the ideas of 
 limit and infinity, unity and number, substance and attribute, cause 
 and effect, and the like, might be applied to intellectual conceptions 
 -without reference to anything beyond the mind itself. It does not 
 seem that the ancient, or at least the heathen philosophers, distin- 
 guished spiritual from intellectual ideas. Indeed Socrates, in the 
 Phsedon, places the spiritual ideas of goodness and justice on the 
 
GS OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. [CHAT. V. 
 
 same footing, in point of reasoning, as the intellectual idea of equality. 
 " We must necessarily have known equality" (says he), " before we 
 first saw equal things, and became aware that they desired (as it were) 
 to partake of the nature of perfect equality, but fell short of that per- 
 fection."* " And this reasoning " (he adds) " is not more applicable to 
 equality, than it is to beauty, goodness, justice, and the like." j On 
 the other hand, however, it will be remembered that in the passage 
 above cited from Plato's Republic, the same Socrates is represented 
 as attaching to the spiritual knowledge of goodness a value incom- 
 parably higher than that of any mental acquisition, 
 ideas of 154. The remaining class of ideas consists of those which are 
 
 objlcts!' 1 applicable to corporeal objects. Space and time (purely and simply 
 considered) do not necessarily imply the existence of any corporeal 
 object corresponding to them ; for space may be contemplated as one 
 infinite vacuum, and even if portioned out and limited by lines and 
 figures, there might be no material forms corresponding to these ; and 
 the same might be said of ever-flowing time, if there were no courses 
 of the stars, or revolutions of the planets, by which it could be 
 measured. But when a new idea intervenes — when we suppose 
 matter to exist — this idea, like all others, becomes prolific of a vast 
 train of subordinate ideas, according as we apply to it the higher ideas 
 of space, time, substance, attribute, cause, effect, &c. We conceive 
 of matter as occupying space ; as enduring for a greater or less time ; 
 as the effect of a cause ; and as a substance holding together various 
 corporeal attributes, as the mind is a substance holding together various 
 mental attributes. From the idea of matter flows that of motion, 
 which combines the idea of force with those of time and space, inas- 
 much as it supposes a portion of matter to occupy at one time one 
 part of space, and at another time another, and to be caused so to do 
 by some force, whether the force be such as urges the planets to move 
 round the sun, or such as makes the smallest conceivable atoms attract 
 or repel each other. All matter, organized and unorganized, and all 
 motion, voluntary and involuntary, have their laws, which become dis- 
 tinctly or indistinctly known to us by sensation and reflection, and 
 may be contemplated either substantively in themselves, or adjectively 
 as attributes of other substances. 
 Substantias, 155. Words which express ideas substantively, whether referable 
 abstract, to spiritual, mental, or corporeal objects, are for the most part com- 
 prehended by Harris and others among " abstract substantives," or 
 words expressing " abstract substances :" and the way in which they 
 are explained is, that " by a refined operation of the mind alone, we 
 abstract any attribute from its necessary subject, and consider it apart, 
 
 * ' Ava.yxa.~ov ago. ri/u.el$ tfeotttivxi to "lffov vrpo txiivov tov %govou, on to wqutov 
 idovrts rot, "\aa. \vivon<rupiv on ogiyiru-i fx.iv <xa,vra. toZt uvai o'tov to Itrov, £;££/ o^i 
 ivbuo-Tiftus — 
 
 f 'Ou yu,(> Via) tov "irov vvv o Xoyns v/juv fzciWov ti ?, xa.) m.£i olvtov tov Kakov, xai 
 eci/Tou tov 'Aya,6ov, xa,) Aixa'iov — x. t. X. 
 
CHAP. V.J OF NOUS'S SUBSTANTIVE. 69 
 
 devoid of its dependence ;" " for instance " (says Harris), " from body 
 we abstract to fly, from surface the being white, and from soul the 
 being temperate ;" and thus are formed the words " Flight" " White- 
 ness" " Temperance." That such an operation of the mind is possible 
 (as I have before said), I do not deny ; but that it is often exercised 
 I doubt ; and that it accurately explains all the conceptions of which 
 it is supposed to be the origin, and consequently all substantives 
 naming those conceptions, appears to me more than doubtful. 
 
 156. The term "Abstraction" is the Latin abstraction and the %*&££* 
 Greek cKpaipeatQ ; but I can find no classical authority for the tion - 
 use of either of the two latter terms, in the sense of the mental 
 operation alluded to. Aristotle appears to have incidentally spoken 
 of geometrical magnitudes as tcl t£ cKfyaipiaawg, " things abstract ;" 
 but this was merely to distinguish the reasoning part of geometry 
 from the diagrams, or visible points, or lines, which Themistius calls 
 vXrj rfjg yeio/JLETpiag, "the matter of geometry," in opposition to 
 its intellectual form. The schoolmen seem first to have used the 
 term " abstract," as opposed to " concrete." The former they defined, 
 " quod significat formam aliquam cum exclusione subjecti ut albedo;" 
 " that which signifies any form, with exclusion of its subject, as white- 
 ness ;" the latter, "quod significat eandem formam cum hserentibus 
 subjecti, ut albus ;" " that which signifies the same form with the 
 accompaniments of the subject, as white" Still this decides nothing 
 as to the mental operation by which the conceptions in question are 
 formed, or the manner in which they arise in the mind : I therefore 
 venture to suggest the following explanation, in conformity with the 
 views which I have hitherto taken of the constitution of the human 
 mind. 
 
 157. The idea of Substance is enumerated above among those Corporeal 
 which are applicable to intellectual objects ; but it has pleased the 
 Almighty that man should possess not only a spirit and a mind, but 
 
 also a body, which Plato (or whosoever composed the First Alci- 
 biades) has compared to an instrument of the mind. It may also be 
 compared to the soil, in which the spiritual and mental seeds are im- 
 planted, and the elements by which they are surrounded, and 
 without which, as seed sown on a rock, they could never put forth 
 their vegetative powers. Hence the idea of an intellectual substance, 
 as an individualising principle, not limited by space, but holding toge- 
 ther, as attributes, various mental faculties, has its contra-type in the 
 idea of a corporeal substance, namely, matter, which, as an individualising 
 principle limited by space, holds together, as attributes, various sensa- 
 tions, and organic, and elementary powers of action. These ideas of 
 matter, at first vague and obscure, become by experience and obser- 
 vation more and more distinct conceptions, so that we can reason on 
 them, on their parts, constitution, and elements, and hereon is founded 
 the whole of Natural Philosophy. 
 
 158. Further, the corporeal conceptions do not at first come to us Corporeal 
 
 A L attributes. 
 
70 
 
 OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. 
 
 Corporeal 
 actions. 
 
 Etymology 
 not here in 
 question. 
 
 [chap. v. 
 
 in the shape of substances, but of sensations, as of heat and cold, light 
 and darkness, &c, all which the mind even of an infant can soon dis- 
 tinguish ; and it can form conceptions of them before it can refer 
 them, as attributes, to any particular substance. Nay, even in after 
 life, sensations often occur, such as those of faintness, languor, ennui, 
 or tcedium vitas, of which we know neither the seat nor the cause ; and 
 yet we can easily reason on them as independent conceptions. In the 
 early stages of reason, when men first look on external objects as 
 causes of their sensations, they usually suppose the attributes of those 
 objects to be similar to the sensations which they experience ; and 
 hence they ascribe heat to fire, light -to the sun, cold to ice, &c. 
 Still the conceptions of heat, light, cold, &c, remain the same : they 
 may be viewed in concreto or in abstracto, as the logicians say, that is, 
 as attributes, or as substantive conceptions. 
 
 159. What has been said of the attributes of corporeal substance 
 may be understood of its actions; which, indeed, are commonly 
 reckoned among its attributes ; as Harris, speaking of abstraction, 
 says, " from body we abstract to fly" And so Falstaff humorously 
 ascribes to his size an " alacrity in sinking." All corporeal action im- 
 plies motion, and the conception of motion (as has been shown) is no 
 less an idea than that of matter is. The conception of " flight," 
 therefore, may be considered not merely as an attribute of the flying 
 body, but as a substantive conception derived from the idea of 
 motion. Moreover, there are certain things, as light, heat, elec- 
 tricity, magnetism, &c, of which we form substantive conceptions, 
 and express them by nouns substantive, though the learned are 
 by no means agreed whether they ought to be included among 
 corporeal substances themselves, or to be reckoned as attributes, 
 forms, or modes of some unknown substance. The great discoverers 
 in these, and, indeed, in all branches of physical science, have been 
 men who traced our knowledge of the operations of Nature up to some 
 bright idea, of which their predecessors had had obscure anticipations, 
 but had never obtained 
 
 That sober certainty of waking bliss — 
 which ever accompanies the "Heureka " of a mighty truth. 
 
 160. In what has been hitherto said, it must be observed that I 
 wholly disregard the historical origin of the words expressing ideas. 
 It may be, and it is true, that the English word Eight and the French 
 word Droit are of the same origin as the Latin word Rego, " I rule, 
 govern, or command;" but long before any of these words were 
 employed in their present signification, there existed in the human mind 
 an idea of Right (still, alas ! too imperfectly understood, and too little 
 desired to be understood, by the great mass of men) which is correla- 
 tive with the idea of Duty, and, together with it, flows from a 
 development of the higher idea of Law. So the word Heaven may be 
 etymologically connected with our common verb " to heave," or with 
 the Anglo-Saxon heqfod, " the head ;" but that there is a state of 
 
CHAP. V.] OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. 71 
 
 greater purity and happiness than can be attained in this mortal life — ■ 
 that there is, indeed, "another and a better world," such as we 
 believe Heaven to be — is an idea wholly independent of these etymo- 
 logies, and which even the most barbarous nations have in all ages 
 been found to cherish. 
 
 161. I have dwelt at some length on the doctrine of Ideas, not General and 
 only because the gross misuse of the word Idea has become so in- noTtobe 
 veterate, since the time of Mr. Locke, in our literature, but because a confoimded - 
 clear understanding of it will correct a confusion very injurious to 
 grammatical science between the terms general and universal. By the 
 
 former we imply that which is equally common to many individuals, 
 and which therefore may be particularised, as " a man," "a slave;" 
 by the latter, that which is absolutely and simply true, whether it can 
 be applied or not to any existing individual, as " manliness, " slavery." 
 These two classes of words are not always distinguishable by their 
 form, but always by their meaning in the sentence in which they are 
 employed. Thus " man " is a general word, when King Henry 
 says — 
 
 Wish not a man from England. 
 
 God's peace ! I would not lose so great an honour, 
 
 As one man more methinks would share from me, 
 
 For the best hope I have. 
 
 But Isabella employs it as an universal in her passionate exclamation — 
 
 Man, proud Man, 
 
 Drest in a little brief authority, 
 
 Plays such fantastic tricks before high Heav'n 
 
 As make the angels weep ! 
 
 And, on the other hand, the word "Right " is an universal in the bold, 
 false, and wicked, but too prevalent assertion — 
 
 That what makes the right and wrong, 
 
 Is a short sword and a long, 
 
 Or a weak arm and a strong. 
 
 But it becomes merely a general word in the Bill of Rights, where 
 the Lords and Commons of England, after setting forth thirteen 
 specific declarations, " claim, demand, and insist upon all and singular 
 the premises as their undoubted rights and liberties." How far the 
 distinction between general and universal words may be grammatically 
 indicated by the construction of a sentence, will be noticed hereafter. 
 Logicians term the words indiscriminately " common," which I have 
 distinguished as general and universal ; and a proposition in which 
 either is predicated may be the major of a syllogism. Formally, 
 therefore, the two classes agree, but materially they differ ; for to 
 general words, strictly speaking, belong only probable arguments, 
 whereas demonstration requires universals. 
 
 162. Thus have I considered the first essential distinction of Gradation, 
 substantives, that of kind. I come now to the other essential distinc- 
 tion, that of gradation, by which I mean that order or arrangement of 
 
72 OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. [CHAP. V. 
 
 conceptions, and consequently of the words naming them, to which 
 Harris refers when he says, " those several (kinds of) substances have 
 their genus, their species, and their individuals ; for example, in natural 
 substances, animal is a genus, man a species, Alexander an indi- 
 vidual." Of these three distinctions, logicians rank the two first 
 among the five predicables, genus, species, differentia, proprium, and 
 accidens : that is to say, they hold that whatever is predicated (or 
 asserted) of anything must be predicated of it as falling under one of 
 these five distinctions. Omitting for the present to notice the three 
 last predicables, I may observe, that an individual, which, strictly 
 speaking, is only an object designated by a proper name, as Alexander, 
 Vatican, Etna, may be classed under a species by possessing some one 
 or more qualities common to it, with all other individuals of the 
 same species, as Alexander agrees with John and others in the quali- 
 ties of a man ; the Vatican with the Tuileries and others in those of a 
 palace ; and Etna with Vesuvius and others in those of a volcano. 
 And again, that a species may be classed under a genus by possessing 
 some one or more qualities common to it with all others of the same 
 genus, as the species man falls under the genus animal by possessing 
 sensibility ; the species palace under the genus edifice by possessing 
 construction ; and the species volcano under the genus mountain by 
 possessing height. But as there is no one external object which solely 
 and exclusively answers to the terms man or animal, palace or edifice, 
 volcano or mountain, it is clear that these are conceptions of the 
 mind, and that the nouns substantive naming them must be not proper 
 but common,* that is, either general or universal. 
 Genus and 163. Harris and others speak only of the three gradations above 
 
 subordina- mentioned, genus, species, and individual ; but it is easy to see that 
 the intermediate gradation may be practically multiplied to any extent. 
 Thus by an operation of the mind we may divide the species man into 
 white and black, free and slave, Greek and barbarian, governors and 
 governed ; or we may make being the genus, created being the first 
 species, organised being the second, animal the third, and so down- 
 wards, in regular subordination. " Every genus," says Harris, " may 
 be found whole and entire in each one of its species ; for thus man, 
 horse, and dog are each of them distinctly a complete animal." And 
 again, " every species may be found whole and entire in each one of 
 its individuals ; for thus Socrates, Plato, and Xenophon are each of 
 them completely and distinctly a man." " This," he adds, " is what 
 Plato seems to have expressed, in a manner somewhat mysterious, 
 when he talks (in the Sophist) of \iiav 'Idiav cka ttoWojv, evbg e/caora 
 
 * Hence the predicate of every proposition must be in effect a common word. 
 In affirmative propositions, to say John is William is merely to say that two names 
 are, by mistake or otherwise, given to the same individual. In negative propo- 
 sitions, such as " John is -not William," the predicate, though formally a proper 
 name, is in effect common ; for the assertion amounts to no more than declaring 
 that John is not Daniel, or Philip, or any other person ; and in this manner it may 
 be said that an individual word may be generalised. 
 
CHAP. V.J OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. 73 
 
 KEifiivv %b)pi-Q 7ravrr} BiareTafxivrjv — teal 7ro\\ag, kripag aXX^Xwr, 
 v7ro /jliclq efaOev 7r£pt£^o/xcVac. Now there is really no mystery in 
 these expressions to any one who has well studied the use of the 
 word idea by Plato ; for he is speaking of an accurate reasoner, 
 one who understands the proper method " of dividing by genera, 
 and neither supposes one species to be another, nor the latter to be 
 the former."* " Such a person," Plato says, *' will clearly discern 
 one idea spreading through many things widely separated from each 
 other, and will perceive that those many separate things are held 
 together under one." 
 
 164. The philosopher's remark maybe thus illustrated: — If any illustrated. 
 person should profoundly meditate (as Hooker did) on the generic 
 
 idea of law, and should know how to divide its species with perfect 
 accuracy into the law divine, revealed and rational, the laws of nature, 
 of nations, and of separate polities, civil and ecclesiastical, assigning 
 to each its due limits, he would clearly perceive that this generic idea 
 pervades all its species, and that all the works of the Creator and of 
 man must alike conform to it, or perish. For want of this animating 
 principle in human laws it is — 
 
 That mighty States characterless are grated 
 
 To dusty nothing. 
 
 And what must happen, if we could suppose a like defection from 
 the laws of nature, has been admirably described by the great authoi 
 of the Ecclesiastical Polity himself — " If those principal and mothei 
 elements," says he, " whereof all things in this lower world are made, 
 should lose the qualities which now they have ; if the frame of that 
 heavenly arch erected over our heads should loosen and dissolve itself; 
 if celestial spheres should forget their wonted motions, and by irre- 
 gular volubility turn themselves any way as it might happen ; if the 
 prince of the lights of heaven, which now as a giant doth run his un- 
 wearied course, should, as it were through a languishing faintness, 
 begin to stand and to rest himself; if the moon should wander from 
 her beaten way ; the times and seasons of the year blend themselves 
 by disordered and confused mixture ; the winds breathe out their last 
 gasp ; the clouds yield no rain ; the earth be defeated of heavenly 
 influence; the fruits of the earth pine away, as children at the 
 withered breasts of their mothers no longer able to yield them relief, 
 what would become of man himself? See we not plainly that 
 obedience of creatures unto the law of nature is the stay of the whole 
 world?" 
 
 165. There are two modes then of acquiring knowledge, with refer- Proceeding 
 ence to the distinction of genus, species, and individual, the ascending to^ecfe™ 8 
 and the descending mode ; and these have been explained or typi- ^|, !ce 
 tied in various ways, as by the Arbor Porphyriana of logicians, the 
 
 2eiprj ygvoia) of the poet, and the Ladder of the patriarch's dream. 
 
 To Ku.ru yzvvi diaigittrdai, xa) fw<rt ruurov slbos iri^ov, r,y/itraa-Sc<.t, f/Jiri tn^ov ov 
 
 raurcv. 
 
74 OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. [CHAP. V. 
 
 Porphyry, an eminent philosopher of the third century, in his Isagoge, 
 or introduction to the five predicables above enumerated, thus forms 
 a scale (usually figured as a tree), viz., Socrates, Homo, rationale, 
 animal, vivens, Corpus, Substantia; according to which we may 
 ascend from the individual, Socrates, to the genus, substance; or 
 descend, vice versa. Homer, in Chapman's spirited translation, thus 
 describes the golden chain by which Jove holds all things suspended— 
 
 Let down our Golden Chain, 
 
 And at it let all Deities their utmost strengths constrain 
 
 To draw me to the Earth from Heav'n ; you never shall prevail, 
 
 Though with your most contention ye dare my state assail. 
 
 But when my will shall be dispos'd to draw you all to me, 
 
 Ev'n with the Earth itself and Seas, ye shall enforced be. 
 
 Then will I to Olympus' top oiir virtuous engine bind, 
 
 And by it ev'ry thing shall hang, by my command inclin'd. 
 
 The patriarch Jacob, in his dream at Luz (afterwards called Bethel), 
 " beheld a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to 
 heaven ; he saw the angels of the Lord ascending and descending on 
 it; and the Lord stood above it." (Genes, xxviii. 12, 13.) Every 
 branch of the tree, every link of the chain, every step of the ladder, 
 beginning at the lowest, brings us nearer to the source of all know- 
 ledge, until we reach 
 
 Things not reveal'd, which the Invisible King, 
 
 Only Omniscient, hath supprest in Night. 
 
 In which belief of a wisdom beyond human attainment our great 
 poet agrees with Plato, who intimates that as the bodily eyes of 
 the generality of men are unable to look steadily at the clear meri- 
 dian sun, so their mental eyes, contemplating the divine light, are 
 unable to sustain its splendour.* On the other hand, the knowledge 
 which begins from the highest intelligible genus, and descends in fit 
 gradation through subordinate species (as has been above exemplified 
 in the idea of law) is also of inestimable value to mankind. To the 
 former belongs inductive science, to the latter demonstrative ; these 
 are the two wings of the human mind, and he who attempts to fly 
 with either alone will effect but an imperfect and limited flight. 
 Practical 166. The practical utility of a- well-formed gradation from an indi- 
 
 gradation. vidual through successive species to a genus, or the contrary, may be 
 thus briefly explained. The general aim and object of the process is 
 to acquire some knowledge that may be useful, not only on one occa- 
 sion but on all similar occasions ; to know some truth which may not 
 only apply to Peter or John, but to all persons who resemble Peter 
 or John ; but this camiot be done unless we have a common word 
 which implies that resemblance, and the persons in question cannot 
 resemble each other but by relation to some common conception, 
 which does not necessarily belong to any one of them more than to 
 any other. That common conception therefore supplies the class- 
 
 * Ta yu,^ tJJj rav rfoXXuiv tyv%ijs oftpara Kx^re^zTv vr^os to ®i~ov atyo^uvra aou- 
 
 uecra. (Sophist, p. 177. Ed. Ficin.) 
 
CHAP. V.] OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. 75 
 
 word, which renders the truth common. Thus Peter, James, and 
 Andrew may be slaves ; the conception of slavery therefore is common 
 to them all, and whatever is universally true of it is true not only with 
 relation to Peter, James, and Andrew, but to all others who are, or 
 have been, or may be, in the state of life expressed by the word slave. 
 Again, a slave and a free citizen agree in this, that they are subjects ; 
 a subject and a sovereign in this, that they are men ; a man and a 
 beast in this, that they are animals. Now all these conceptions, to 
 wit, slavery, subjection, human nature, and animal nature, are so many 
 mental conceptions or ideas, and they are regularly subordinated, one 
 to another, in a certain gradation, according as they are viewed by the 
 mind ; which view is determined, not by any accidental impression 
 received from the senses, but, on the contrary, by the general truth of 
 which the understanding is in search. Thus, if I am in search of 
 some truth relative to the state of slavery, I may consider the concep- 
 tion of slave as a genus, and divide it into the species of domestic, 
 political, absolute, limited, and the like ; or if I wish to reason on 
 animal nature, I may regard animal as the genus, and man, beast, 
 bud, fish, &c. as species. In like maimer I may consider an angle as 
 a genus, and right, acute, and obtuse angles as species. 
 
 167. They who think that we can have no conceptions but those Certainty, 
 of bodily impression, that there is no substance but matter, and that 
 sensation and reflection are alike bodily acts, will of course contend 
 
 that there can be no truth or certainty in the mental conceptions which 
 we call genera and species, and consequently no precise meaning in 
 the words by which they are signified, inasmuch as there is no ex- 
 ternal standard to which they can be referred. But an external 
 standard, to which there are no means of referring, is in fact no standard 
 at all. Now this must happen, in the great majority of cases, with 
 regard to corporeal conceptions. No sooner have I seen " Peter " or 
 " John," than he may take his departure. Shall I then say he is a 
 nonentity ? And what has truth or certainty to do with external 
 existence, more than with internal ? We do, in fact, attain greater 
 certainty, and are more confidently persuaded of truth, in regard 
 to some mental, than we possibly can in regard to any corporeal con- 
 ceptions. Mathematical demonstration is proverbially clear and un- 
 questionable ; but mathematical demonstration is carried on solely by 
 means of ideal conceptions. If men were to trust to physical mea- 
 surement, aided by the very nicest instruments, they might be em- 
 ployed for ages before they could satisfy themselves that the three 
 angles of a right-lined triangle were universally equal to two right 
 angles. 
 
 168. The species is to the genus as the individual is to the species. Species 
 Hence it is, that though (as I have said) an individual, strictly individual, 
 speaking, is an object designated by a proper name, yet a species, 
 though necessarily designated as such by a common noun, may be 
 contemplated as an individual, with reference to the genus to which 
 
76 OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. [CHAP. V. 
 
 it belongs. The conceptions of virtue and modesty, separately con- 
 sidered, may be regarded as genera ; but if the latter be contemplated 
 only as a species of the former, it may be individualised. When 
 Hamlet says to his guilty mother, 
 
 Assume a virtue, if you have it not, 
 he alludes to modesty as one of several species of the genus virtue. 
 Again, when we say, 4 * Virtue is its own reward," we speak of virtue 
 as one of the several species of the genus reward. On this principle 
 we may correct what seems to be an error of the learned grammarians 
 of Port Royal, and of M. Dumarsais. " There are nouns," say Messrs. 
 de Port Royal, " which pass for substantives* but are really adjectives, 
 as * King,' ' Philosopher,' ' Physician ; ' " and M. Dumarsais says, in 
 the phrase " Louis is king," king is an adjective. Now it surely 
 would be more correct to say that the words alluded to are substan- 
 tives common, signifying species or genera, of which the person indi- 
 cated is an individual. Louis was an individual of the species king, 
 and genus ruler. Davy was an individual of the species chemist, and 
 genus natural philosopher, and so forth. Condillac says that when a 
 substantive is the attribute (he means the predicate), it is the more 
 general of the two terms. Now, this is true with reference to the 
 particular view taken at the time of speaking. When we say " Time 
 is money," we do not mean to use the words time and money both 
 as universals, implying genera, so as to make the proposition merely 
 an identical one ; but we suppose the word money to be employed 
 symbolically as a genus, including all the means of acquiring what- 
 soever men deem valuable ; we regard time as a species of that genus, 
 and we might continue the gradations thus, Time is money, Money is 
 power, Power is happiness. So when we say " Gratitude is justice," 
 we mean, that gratitude is a species of the genus justice : it is one of 
 the many forms of rendering suum cuique, such as punishing crime, 
 rewarding merit, paying a debt, returning a kindness, &c. 
 Partition and 169. From what has been said it will be manifest that a genus is 
 an idea including various species, not as a day includes an hour, or as 
 a mile includes an inch ; that is to say, as a given measurable portion 
 of time or space, matter or motion, but as involving conceptions of a 
 lower order and less comprehensive nature. This distinction Cicero 
 expresses by the words Partitio and Divisio. " In partitioned ' says he, 
 " quasi membra sunt, ut corporis, caput, humeri, manus, latera, crura, 
 pedes, caetera. In divisione formae sunt, quas nostri species appellant. 
 Formae sunt hae in quas genus, sine ullius praetermissione, dividitur ; 
 ut si quis jus, in legem, morem, aequitatem, dividat." (Topic, 6, 7.) 
 To partition, rather than to division, belongs the class of nouns called 
 nouns of multitude, each of which, though it represents a number of 
 beings definite or indefinite, still represents them as one thing ; of this 
 kind are the words " an army," " a regiment," " a troop," " a nation," 
 " a crowd," " a flock." Those writers who have not well compre- 
 hended the distinction of genus and species, have sometimes explained 
 
 Division. 
 
CHAP. V.] OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. 77 
 
 the words representing them as mere nouns of multitude ; that is to 
 say, " as representatives of many particular things," instead of being 
 representatives of an idea common to those particular things. 
 
 170. Having thus considered the essential distinctions of nouns Number, 
 substantive, viz., kind and gradation, I have next to speak of the 
 accidental distinctions, viz,, number, gender, and relation or case. 
 Whatever is accidental may, or may not, be viewed in connection with 
 
 that which is essential. Thus the conception of ideas of number may 
 or may not be viewed in connection with other conceptions, as that of 
 " man," or " whiteness," or "sun," or "star;" and if viewed in 
 connection with any one of these, the complex conception may be 
 expressed by a single word, or by two words, as happens in regard to 
 other combinations of ideas ; thus as " saint " is a single word, 
 including the conceptions expressed by the two words, " holy " and 
 " man," so the word " horses " includes the conceptions expressed by 
 the words "horse" and " number." 
 
 171. In order to understand when the conceptions of number can, whence 
 and when they cannot, be added to other conceptions, we must con- env ' ' 
 sider what the former are. For this purpose I cannot refer to a more 
 satisfactory or better authority than Plato's Ephwmis, sometimes called 
 
 the Thirteenth Book on Laws ; but the whole passage is too long to 
 be extracted, and I should do it injustice were I to exhibit it in an 
 imperfect state. Suffice it to say that Plato agrees with Mr. Locke 
 in asserting that " number is the simplest and most universal idea," 
 for unity itself is in this sense the origin of all our ideas of number. 
 But the latter philosopher is by no means correct in saying that " its 
 modes are made by addition ; " for we might as well say that they 
 were made by division, or by subtraction, or by multiplication ; since 
 addition is, equally with each of the others, one of the powers of 
 numbers, and presupposes the idea w T hich Mr. Locke imagines it to 
 produce. He says, " by repeating this idea (viz., of unity) in our 
 minds, and adding the repetitions together, we come by the complex 
 ideas of the modes of it. Thus by adding one to one we have the 
 complex idea of a couple." Very true, by adding ; but not by simply 
 repeating, which is a totally different operation. John is one, and 
 Peter is one, and Henry is one ; but one is not two, or three. What 
 makes me then acquire the ideas of two or three ? Certainly not the 
 bare act of repeating one, one, one ; for children and idiots who cannot 
 reckon three, can do this : and M. de la Condamine mentions whole tribes 
 of savages who cannot reckon beyond three, though certainly they could 
 repeat one, two, three, all the day long. There must, then, be some- 
 thing in the nature of the ideas of number without which it would be 
 impossible for us to "add one to one," and thence to obtain "the 
 complex idea of number." Now, this consists in the still more general 
 nature of all ideas, and in that power, which they have, to grow and 
 multiply by contemplation. Thus, if we enumerate John, and Richard, 
 and Henry, and William, and James, and Edward, and so forth, the 
 
78 OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. [CHAP. V. 
 
 very slightest attention will show us that there is not merely unity, 
 but multitude, or the idea of number in its most indistinct form ; but 
 in order to distinguish this multitude into given numbers, as twos, 
 threes, or fours, it will be necessary to refer each conception to some 
 other. Thus these two, John and Richard, are tall ; these three, 
 Henry, William, and James, are short; Or these three, John, and 
 Richard, and Henry, stand in the first line ; these two, William and 
 James, stand in the second; or the first, John, is counted on the 
 thumb ; the second, Richard, on the fore finger ; the third, Henry, on 
 the middle finger ; the fourth, William, on the finger next beyond the 
 middle ; and the fifth, James, on the little- finger. This last mode of 
 sorting and classing conceptions has been very generally adopted by 
 mankind, whence the Greek word irz\x-Kaluv, u to reckon by fives," 
 was used for " to number." Some barbarous tribes never went beyond 
 the use of one hand for this purpose ; whereas the more cultivated 
 nations employed both hands ; and this latter mode is the origin of 
 our decimal system of arithmetic, and explains why the numeral figures 
 are still called digits, that is, fingers. 
 
 Plural 172. I have observed that the first conception of number is simply, 
 
 that it is something beyond, and different from, unity ; that it is unity 
 repeated, or multitude. Thus far most nations have gone, in expressing, 
 by one word, the combination of number with any given conception ; 
 and this variation in the noun is called, by grammarians, the plural 
 number. The plural number usually differs from the singular in form, 
 either by the use of a word altogether different, as "pig and swine; " 
 or by a change in articulation, as "man and men;" or by a syllable 
 added, as " horse and horses," " ox and oxen ;" but as the variety of 
 these forms proves that no one of them is essentially necessary ; so 
 both experience and reflection will show that no change whatever is 
 necessary in the noun itself, provided that some other word serves to 
 show us that the noun is used with reference to plurality ; thus in 
 English we say " fifty sheep" and " fifty head of cattle ;" and so in 
 Latin the genitive and dative cases singular, and nominative and 
 vocative plural of the first declension, are identical. 
 
 jPumler 17$. ^e ^ orm * n w ^ cn tne n o un expresses unity of conception, 
 
 is called the singular number ; but it would not be possible for nouns to 
 have a separate inflection for every separate conception of number, that 
 could be combined with them by the mind. Therefore, they cannot 
 have separate forms for the dual, ternal, quaternal numbers, and so on, 
 ad infinitum ; but for some of these numbers they may. Experience, 
 indeed, has not shown us that they have ever gone beyond the dual 
 number ; and that has been done by very few nations. Certain writers 
 argue on this and other matters concerning language, as if the formation 
 of different dialects were a matter of premeditation and study ; 
 whereas it is certain that all languages, in their early state, grow up 
 without meditation or reflection, and that the cultivation and polishing 
 of its language is one of the last results of a nation's civilization. Nor 
 
CHAP. V.] OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. 79 
 
 can this be otherwise ; for ideas, which are the laws of mind, develop 
 themselves in practice, and guide our mental operations, just as animal 
 laws direct our bodily actions, long before we suspect either of them 
 to exist. We walk, and dance, and ride, according to the laws of 
 gravitation ; we swim by the principles of hydrostatics ; we form and 
 express thoughts by the laws of conception, assertion, and conclusion ; 
 but it is not until long after we have submitted to those laws, that we 
 begin to take cognizance of them as distinct objects of thought ; 
 for the last operation of the human intellect is that by which it 
 separates itself from outward things, and discovers within its own 
 nature a world of beauty and order, which even more than this won- 
 drous body of man with all its curious apparatus, chemical and 
 mechanical, more than this terraqueous globe with its animal and 
 vegetable and mineral riches, more than the sun " looking from his 
 sole dominion," or even than the countless numbers of the heavenly 
 host peopling interminable space, discovers to our finite comprehension 
 the traces of that Deity, who cannot be more fully revealed but by his 
 own divine word. 
 
 174, Thus it is, that in intellectual, as in moral speculation, our Absolute 
 simplest conceptions are most closely connected with that absolute trut ' 
 truth, of which Mr. Tooke altogether denies the existence. " Truth," 
 
 says he, " supposes mankind for whom, and by whom alone, the 
 word is formed. If no man, no truth. There is, therefore, no such 
 thing as eternal, immutable, everlasting Truth ; unless mankind, such 
 as they are at present, be also eternal, immutable, and everlasting. 
 Two persons may contradict each other, and yet both speak truth." 
 This is not only not common sense, but it is very bad logic. The argu- 
 ment runs thus : A man trowed or believed something to exist ; he 
 used the word " troweth, troth, or truth," to express this belief; 
 therefore no such thing existed. Again, two men believed that two 
 different things existed ; they both used the same word to express the 
 same belief : therefore the belief of both was equally well founded. 
 Turn Mr. Tooke's sentences how we will, they come to this sort of 
 reasoning, and can only be accounted for by his loose and hasty con- 
 ception of the word thing ; which as he uses it, corresponds exactly to 
 Mons. Condillac's object, and to Mr. Locke's idea ; and really means 
 nothing ; that is to say, nothing certain, definite, or intelligible. 
 
 175. That the human mind can embrace Eternal Truth, in the Truth of 
 widest sense of these terms, it would be folly and madness to assert ; mm ers " 
 but that none of the truths which it is formed to comprehend are 
 eternal, is a proposition, to say the least of it, extremely bold. At all 
 events, the circumstance that men, " such as they are at present," 
 
 may not be able clearly to comprehend a given truth, is certainly no 
 proof of its falsehood. Suppose a child does not well comprehend 
 that two and two are four, are they the less so ? Now, this is the 
 case with all conceptions of number. We begin with unity, we 
 proceed to multitude, we advance to numeration ; but the elementary 
 
80 OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. |~ CIIAp . V. 
 
 books of arithmetic will teach us that this last is the introduction to 
 that science by which Newton brought down the old divinities from 
 their starry thrones, and converted lovely Venus and potent Jove into 
 silent monitors of the lapse of time, or friendly guides of the adventu- 
 rous navigator on a lonely ocean; that science, by which judicial 
 astrology was for ever confuted, and men learnt to gaze unmoved on 
 the comet, which, as they had once thought, 
 
 from his horrid hair 
 
 Shook pestilence and war. 
 
 How 176. Such being the nature and power of the conceptions of number, 
 
 withSer l et us inquire how, and on what principles it is that they are connected 
 truths. w i t h ther conceptions : and here it will be seen that these principles 
 
 are founded in the essential distinctions of the noun, as already 
 described ; for the principal office of numbers is to apply science to 
 fact, by distributing the genus into its species, and the species into its 
 individuals ; number, therefore, is the bond uniting the universal with 
 the particular, the highest genus with the lowest individual, Eternal 
 Truth with momentary sensation. Therefore it is, that Plato says, 
 ItVep apt^^bv ek rfjg av$pu)7rivr]Q <j)vcreojg e^iXoifxrjv 6v\c av ttote ri 
 (ppopifxot yevoifieSa. " If we were to take out number from human 
 nature, we should become void of thought on every subject ;" which 
 he again illustrates by observing, that an animal which has not the 
 distinct conceptions of two or three, or of even and odd, and, conse- 
 quently, is quite ignorant of numeration, can never give any account 
 of those things which he perceives by sense and memory. 
 How applied 177. "The genus," as has been observed, " is found whole and 
 spe g cles! s and entire in each one of its species." Thus the genus animal is found in 
 the different species, man, horse, and dog ; that is to say, a man is 
 an animal, a horse is an animal, and a dog is an animal. By num- 
 bering the species, we find that the genus though one, is capable of 
 being conceived in them as many, and therefore we can speak of many 
 animals. Again, " the species is found whole and entire in the 
 individual." Thus Socrates is a man, Plato is a man, Xenophon is a 
 man ; and by applying the conception of number to the species of 
 man, we call them three men. The plural number, therefore, be- 
 longs to genera and species : and accordingly we find all languages 
 apply the plural number to words expressing genera and species, that 
 is to say, to the words, called common, or appellative. 
 Proper names 178. But the case is totally different with proper names, when 
 singular. strictly used as such ; for in that case they are applied to individuals, . 
 and the individual is not found whole and entire in the genus or 
 species. The conception of Ccesar is not found whole and entire in 
 the genus animal, or in the species man, or in the class of Romans, or 
 of conquerors, or of generals, or of soldiers, or of scholars. The word 
 Caesar, therefore, when used to express the very individual who passed 
 the Rubicon, and who spoke with so much affected liberality in 
 behalf of the traitors engaged in the Catilinarian conspiracy, and who 
 
CHAP. V.] OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. 81 
 
 doubted of a future state, and who associated with the debauched and 
 profligate Antony, and who at once nattered and subjugated the 
 Roman people, cannot receive a plural termination; and for this 
 reason, because the particular conception which it expresses cannot be 
 associated with number ; since there never was nor ever will be more 
 than one such man ; who therefore spoke philosophically and truly, 
 when he said — 
 
 For always I am Csesar. 
 
 But if the word Caesar be used to express a different conception ; if 
 it mean something which is also found whole and entire in Alexander, 
 and Attila, and Jenghiz Khan, and Napoleon Buonaparte, then indeed 
 "the Caesars "'is a proper grammatical form of speech; because the 
 noun is no longer a proper name, but an appellative : then we may 
 reason on the Caesars, as on a class or species, and what we say of one 
 will be equally true of another ; but then the word, though the same 
 in sound, will be very different in signification ; and the reason which 
 before prevented our adding to it the plural termination will no 
 longer exist. 
 
 179. Mr. Harris has mentioned various ways in which a proper How they 
 name may come to be used as an appellative. The persons indicated p furd. e 
 by it may, as members of the same family, or from other accidental 
 causes, happen to bear the same name. Hence the expression of 
 
 " the twelve Caesars," to designate twelve Roman emperors who suc- 
 cessively bore that name. Hence too the Howards, Pelhams, and 
 Montagues, "because a race or family is like a smaller sort of 
 species ;" so that the family name extends to the kindred, as the 
 specific name extends to the individuals. Again, another cause which 
 contributes to make proper names plural, is the marked character of 
 some individual who bears it, whether for eminent virtue, or for 
 notorious vice, or simply for anything extraordinary and singular in 
 his conduct or opinions. It is thus that in speaking on the subject of 
 Grammar, we might not improperly say, " these are the opinions of a 
 Condillac ! " referring to an author of some celebrity (though, as I 
 think, of remarkable inaccuracy) in his views of that subject. So the 
 liberality of Horace's patron and friend has made every patron of lite- 
 rature be called a Maecenas ; the odious cruelties of Nero have made 
 his name a synonym with the word tyrant : and on the same prin- 
 ciple Shylock, when he would express the integrity and acuteness of 
 the supposed young lawyer, exclaims, 
 
 A Daniel come to judgment ! Yea, a Daniel! 
 
 180. Gender, as an accidental distinction of nouns, has given rise to Gender. 
 much litigation among grammarians. " Gender," says Vossius, " is 
 properly a distinction of sex ; but it is improperly attributed to those 
 things which have not sex, and only follow the nature of things hav- 
 ing sex, in so far as regards the agreement of substantive with adjec- 
 tive. Sex is proper] v expressed in reference to male and female, as 
 
 2. G 
 
82 OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. [CHAP. V. 
 
 Pythagoras and Theano ; ager, a field, therefore, is improperly called 
 masculine ; and herba, an herb, is improperly called feminine. But 
 animal is neuter, because it is construed neither way." Scaliger 
 says, that the ancients improperly attributed sex to words ; and that 
 with respect to the neuter gender, it is absurd to attribute that to 
 gender which is the negation of gender. Neither is it to be borne, 
 says he, that words should be called of the doubtful gender, from the 
 circumstance of their being sometimes used with a masculine and 
 sometimes with a feminine construction. Mr. Harris, however, has, 
 with some ingenuity, endeavoured to assign reasons for the generic 
 distinction of nouns. " Every substance," says he, " is male or 
 female, or both male and female, or neither one nor the other. So 
 that with respect to sexes and their negation, all substances con- 
 ceivable are comprehended under this fourfold consideration." Hence 
 he proceeds to consider language as if it had been really and inten- 
 tionally formed with a view to this classification of substances. As 
 to the first and second class, they are manifestly such as must on 
 many occasions require some mode of expression. The third is rare, 
 and its expression would in general be shunned. But as to the fourth, 
 it must necessarily include by far the greater portion of the objects of 
 thought. In languages which express the natural sexes alone by 
 terms corresponding to them, very little difficulty occurs in this part 
 of Grammar. In general, every noun denoting a male animal is mas- 
 culine ; every noun denoting a female animal is feminine ; and every 
 noun denoting neither the one nor the other is neuter. The only 
 exception to this general rule, is an exception which is founded in the 
 poetical part of our nature ; and it happily serves to distinguish the 
 language of imagination from that of reality. The instances to which 
 I allude are those in which the conception of a thing is raised to the 
 dignity of a person, or where we dwell with such fondness on our 
 thoughts as to invest them, as it were, with life and action. Virtue 
 stands before us in the enchanting form of a lovely female. Patience 
 appears " gazing on kings' graves, and smiling extremity out of act." 
 — So Shakspeare says, — 
 
 The mortal Moon hath her eclipse endured. 
 And perhaps a finer instance of this figurative use of gender cannot be 
 cited than its application to the Idea of Form, in Milton's noble de- 
 scription of Satan — 
 
 His form had yet not lost 
 
 All her original brightness, nor appear'd 
 
 Less than archangel ruin'd. 
 
 But in languages where the mere terminations of words imply, or are 
 supposed to imply, any or all of these distinctions, it is no wonder 
 that much confusion arises in the various modes of explaining a cir- 
 cumstance so foreign to the general laws of thought. "The Greek, 
 Latin, and many of the modern tongues," says Mr. Harris, "have 
 words, some masculine, some feminine (and those too in great multi- 
 
CHAP. V.] OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. 83 
 
 tudes), which have reference to substantives where sex never had 
 existence. To give one instance for many, mind is surely neither male 
 nor female ; yet is vovq, in Greek, masculine ; and mens in Latin, 
 feminine." This learned grammarian could not but perceive that ' ' in 
 some words these distinctions seemed owing to nothing else than to 
 the mere casual structure of the word itself;" but he was of opinion 
 that in other instances there might be detected " a more subtle kind 
 of reasoning, which discerned even in things without sex a distant 
 analogy to that great distinction which, according to Milton, animates 
 the world!" 
 
 181. I am far from asserting that in particular instances some such Mr. Harris's 
 analogy may not have operated. Indeed it appears to be of the 
 nature of that imagination to which we owe the figurative language 
 above mentioned ; but it could only have been a rare accident, by no 
 means capable of carrying us far toward the explanation of the princi- 
 ples on which language in general was constructed. Harris, it must 
 be owned, expresses himself modestly enough, observing, " that all 
 such speculations are at best but conjectures, and should therefore be 
 received with candour rather than scrutinised with rigour." " Varro's 
 words, on a subject near akin," says he, "are for their aptness and 
 elegance well worth attending : Non mediocres enim tenebrce in silvd ubi 
 Tuec captanda, neque eb, quo pervenire volumus semitai tritce, neque non in 
 tramitibus qucedam objecta, quce euntem retinere possunt." With this 
 allowance, we may therefore notice the general principle for which 
 Han-is contends, namely, that " we may conceive such subjects to 
 have been considered as masculine, which were conspicuous for the 
 attributes of imparting or communicating ; or which were, by nature, 
 active, strong, and efficacious, and that indiscriminately, whether to 
 good or to bad ; or which had claim to eminence either laudable or 
 otherwise ;" and again, that " the feminine were such as were con- 
 spicuous for the attributes either of receiving, of containing, of pro- 
 ducing, or of bringing forth, or which had more of the passive in their 
 nature than of the active ; or which were peculiarly beautiful and 
 amiable, or which had respect to such excesses as were rather femi- 
 nine than masculine." Hence he thinks it would be reasonable to 
 consider as masculine nouns, the "sun," the "sky," the "ocean," 
 "time," "death," "sleep," and "God;" and as feminines, the 
 "moon," the "earth," a "ship," a "city," a "country," and 
 " virtue." But the question, as respects the science of Grammar, is 
 not whether any or all of these may not occasionally and accidentally 
 be so considered ; but whether there be any necessary cause connect- 
 ing in our minds the conception of sex with any of them. Now r , 
 there can be no other such cause than personification, because sex is a 
 personal distinction ; but even that cause does not universally apply to 
 any of these conceptions. God, indeed, our creator and preserver, 
 we usually and properly regard as a person ; and then the reasoning 
 of Mr. Harris is so far just, that we cannot easily view the Supreme 
 
 g2 
 
84 OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. [cHAP. V. 
 
 Being as a female; for even in those heathen mythologies which 
 abound with female divinities, the chief and sovereign Deity is always 
 represented as masculine. But Hams himself admits, what indeed 
 the common experience of every day sufficiently proves, that we often 
 contemplate this ineffable conception without any reference to sex, or 
 even to person, calling it " Deity," " Numen," " to Seiov." It must 
 be remembered, that personification was more common among the 
 ancients than among the moderns. The Greeks actually worshipped 
 Sleep and Death in the form of men : Virtue was portrayed before 
 their eyes by the statue of a female. Nor must we forget that many 
 of these personifications have been handed down to us from them by 
 mere tradition and the language of the poets. Thus it is difficult for 
 us, who have seen Fame and Victory so often delineated as females, 
 on ancient medals, and in sculpture, who read of them as such in 
 poetry, and know that Fama and Victoria are nouns of feminine ter- 
 mination; it is difficult for us, when we do personify these airy 
 beings, to figure them to ourselves as men, in a different habit and 
 form, with different accompaniments, and expressed by words and 
 sentences of a different character and construction. But there are 
 comparatively few things which we personify in our common prose : 
 and when we do so, the change of the form of words from neuter to 
 masculine or feminine, at once and powerfully marks the transition of 
 the mind from cold matter of fact to ardent imagination. This, how- 
 ever, is again an accidental circumstance appertaining to the particular 
 history of the English language, and not to the philosophy of language 
 in general. 
 Gender of 182. There is a curious difference of opinion between Sanctius 
 
 and Harris. The former writer asserts " that proper names of men, 
 cities, rivers, mountains, and the like do not admit of grammatical 
 gender;" " Nomina propria hominum, urbium, fluviorum, montium, et 
 ccetera hujusmodi, genus grammaticum habere non posse ;" whereas the 
 latter author says "both number and gender appertain to words. — 
 Number, in strictness, descends no lower than to the last rank of 
 species : gender, on the contrary, stops not here, but descends to every 
 individual, however diversified." ' This apparent contradiction between 
 two eminent writers is nevertheless easily reconciled. Harris attri- 
 butes gender to words as significant of the conceptions of the mind. 
 Sanctius, on the other hand, following the authority of Varro and 
 Diomedes, considers grammatical gender as relating only to the termi- 
 nation or construction of words. " Thus," says Varro, "we do not 
 call those words masculine which signify male beings, but those before 
 which are properly placed hie and hi, and those ieminine with which 
 we can say hcec and hce." " Sic itaque ea virilia dicimus, non quce virum 
 significant, sed quibus prceponimus hie et hi; et sic muliebria in quibus 
 dicere possumus hose et hee" The reason which this author assigns for 
 his doctrine is suitable enough to Grammar as an art, but not as a 
 science. Grammatics propositum non est singularum vocum signijtcationes 
 
 proper 
 
CHAP. V.J OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. 85 
 
 explicare, sed usum. " The object of Grammar is not to explain the 
 significations of particular words, but their use." Now, though the 
 mere signification of words is not the object of Grammar, the mode of 
 signification is so far from being an immaterial part of that science, 
 that it is its sole foundation. There is no doubt but that the expres- 
 sion or non-expression of the distinction of sex in connection with other 
 conceptions, must affect the relations of language considered as signi- 
 ficant, and consequently must fall under the science of Grammar, 
 according to the definition of it above adopted. This expression is 
 not essential to all nouns, but it is an accident universally affecting 
 whole classes of nouns, and therefore demanding for its application 
 some rules of Universal Grammar. 
 
 183. Now those rules not only do not depend on the termination Termina- 
 or other peculiarity in the sound of words, but even in the Latin lan- 
 guage, as Wall is has observed, sex is not so distinguished; for 
 though the termination um is neuter, yet the words scortum, mancipium, 
 amasium, &c, are applied both to the male and female sex : and so 
 
 we find it even in proper names, as Glycerium mea, which Priscian 
 notes as figurative. 
 
 184. Regarding only the science of Grammar, as dependent on the Union of 
 nature of thought, it is manifest, that those conceptions which are of 
 
 a nature to coalesce, in reason or fancy, may be considered either dis- 
 tinctly or in absolute union. Thus the conception of " number " and 
 that of " soldier" are absolutely united in the conception of " army" 
 or " regiment," or " troop ; " the conception of " royalty " and that of 
 " man" are absolutely united in that of " king ;" and so the concep- 
 tion of " sex" and that of " child" are absolutely united in the words 
 ** boy " and " girl." This sort of union gives occasion to many 
 classes of words in most languages, as " horse " and " mare," "ram" 
 and "ewe;" "bull" and "cow;" but there is a second class in 
 which the same distinction is expressed by the compound form of the 
 word, as "shepherd" and " shepherdess," "milliner" and "man- 
 milliner ; " and lastly, the sexual quality is often expressed by its 
 proper adjective, as the " male and female elephant," the " male and 
 female rhinoceros." 
 
 185. There are some conceptions in which that of sex is tacitly Con } mon 
 
 i j gender. 
 
 included, but may not be absolutely determinable, or may not require 
 to be determined for the purpose of communicating thought. Thus a 
 " child " is either a " boy " or a " girl ; " but if we are reasoning on 
 the education of children generally, many thoughts may occur to us 
 which indifferently and equally relate to boys and girls, and in express- 
 ing which we may therefore use the neuter word " child." And per- 
 haps this consideration alone would afford a sufficient answer to those 
 persons who contend, like Hobbes, that the general word "man" is 
 no more than the representation of some one particular man in my 
 memory or imagination : for if the word child in my thoughts repre- 
 sented a boy, it could not represent a girl, and vice versa; whereas 
 
Accidental 
 
 ajisociations. 
 
 Animated 
 style. 
 
 86 OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. [CHAP. V. 
 
 we see in practice that it represents the two opposite sexes at the 
 same time, without the least difficulty, and serves the purposes of rea- 
 soning quite as well, and oftentimes better than if we had employed 
 different words for the two sexes. 
 
 186. Lastly, there are conceptions, which in reality have nothing 
 to do with sex, but which, from various causes, principally depending 
 on imagination or habit, we are apt to consider in connection with 
 notions of sex. Thus the English sailor, who has contracted a sort 
 of affection for the tight vessel in which he has braved the winds and 
 waves, and who sees in her neat trim and gallant tackling the elegance 
 of female apparel, is habitually led to speak of her as a female. Who 
 has not been electrified with the feeling expressed in the old sea- 
 song — 
 
 She rights, she rights,, boys — we're off shore ! 
 To a similar cause it is to be attributed that we can hardly think 
 of Britannia as a mailed warrior, " an arm'd man for the battle," or 
 as a sea-god wielding his trident over the subject waves ; but we see 
 her, like another Minerva, great in arts and arms > circling her brows 
 at once with the olive and the laurel, covering the nations Avith her 
 aegis, and stretching out her spear for their protection. If we speak 
 of her domestic greatness, it is as 
 
 The nurse, the teeming womb of royal kings ; 
 if we lament her errors, and her failings, we 
 
 Feel for her, as a lover, or a child. 
 
 187. This is the language, not of mere plain unadorned reason, but 
 of reason elevated and sublimed by passion ; yet does not this circum- 
 stance take it entirely out of the domain of Grammar, viewed as 
 teaching the necessary modes of communicating thought ; for passion 
 is a necessary part of our nature, and it unavoidably gives a hue and 
 tinge to our conceptions, and forces us to modify accordingly the 
 forms of expression in language. Unhappy is the critic who knows 
 nothing of this part of Grammar; he will not only miss some of the 
 finest beauties in the poets, but if he attempt to correct what he 
 thinks faulty, he will display, in the most ridiculous light, his own 
 want of taste. Mr. Harris has finely exemplified this remark,, by a 
 quotation from Milton — 
 
 At his command th' uprooted hills retired 
 Each to his place : they heard his voice and went 
 Obsequious : Heav'n his wonted face renew'd, 
 And with fresh flow'rets hill and valley smil'd. 
 
 " Here," says Hairis, " all things are personified: the hills hear, 
 the valleys smile, and the face of heaven is renewed. Suppose, then, 
 the poet had been necessitated by the laws of his language (or we 
 may add by the correction of the critic) to have said, Each hill retired 
 to its place ; Heaven renewed its wonted face — how prosaic and life- 
 less would these neuters have appeared ; how detrimental to the pro- 
 
CHAP. V.] OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. 87 
 
 sopopeia which he was aiming to establish ! In this, therefore, he 
 was happy, that the language in which he wrote imposed no such 
 necessity, and he was too wise a writer to impose it on himself. 
 'Twere to be wished his correctors had been as wise on their parts." 
 That they were not always so wise we have a striking instance in the 
 celebrated Bentley, who has taken upon himself to make a vast 
 number of alterations of this kind in Milton's text. Thus the great 
 poet, in his picturesque description of creation, had written — 
 
 . The swan, with arched neck, 
 
 Between her white wings mantling proudly, rows 
 
 Her state with oary feet. 
 
 On which Dr. Bentley has the following note : " The swan, her 
 white wings ! and her state ! I wonder he should make the swan of 
 the feminine gender, contrary to both Greek and Latin; always 
 Kvkvoq, cygnus. Rather, therefore, his wings, his state." This comes 
 of having learnt only the Greek and Latin Grammars, and not know- 
 ing, even of these, the true foundations ! 
 
 188. I come now to the expression of the relations of nouns to Relation, 
 each other, which is effected by declension, or case, if the relation 
 
 and the conception coalesce in one word, and by a preposition, if in 
 different words. By this short statement many disputes of gram- 
 marians relative to the cases of nouns will be easily settled. Declen- 
 sion is the term commonly used to signify the variation of case ; but 
 Varro considers case as only one mode of declension. His expres- 
 sions are these : " Of words, as man and horse, there are four kinds 
 of declension ; first nominal, as from equus comes equile ; secondly 
 casual, as from equus comes equum ; thirdly augmentative, as from 
 albus comes albius ; and fourthly diminuent, as from cista comes 
 cistula." I have, however, at present only to do with the second of 
 these modes. 
 
 189. It was long disputed what number of cases existed in the Number of 
 Latin language. These are thus enumerated and explained by Ciwe3 ' 
 Priscian : " The first case is called the right, or nominative case; for 
 
 by this case naming is effected ; as this man is called Homer, and 
 that man Virgil. The reason that it is sometimes called the right or 
 straight case is, that it is first formed naturally by merely laying down 
 the word, and then the other cases formed by flexion from this are 
 called oblique. The next is the genitive, which is also called by some 
 the possessive or paternal. The word genitive is either derived from 
 genus, a race, because we signify by it the race to which any one 
 belongs, as ' he is of Priam's race,' or from genero to generate, be- 
 cause from this case are generated many other words and parts of 
 speech ; at least it is so in the Greek language. Again it is called 
 possessive, because we signify possession by this case, as ' Priam's 
 kingdom,' or the kingdom possessed by Priam : whence possessive 
 adjectives may also be construed by this case ; for what is * the 
 Priameian kingdom ' but ' the kingdom of Priam,' or ' Priam's 
 
88 OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. [CHAP. V. 
 
 kingdom ?' It is called paternal for a similar reason, because the 
 father's name is thus expressed, as ' Priam's son ;' and hence patro- 
 nymic names may be resolved into this case, as ' Pelidan Achilles ' is 
 the same as Achilles the son of Peleus. The following case is the 
 dative, which some term the commendative. I give a thing ' to a 
 man,' or I recommend a person ' to a man.' Fourthly comes the 
 accusative or causative : I accuse a man, or I (as a cause) make a 
 thing. The fifth case is the vocative or salutatory, as ' O Eneas !' or 
 * Hail Eneas !' The ablative is also called the comparative ; as 'I 
 take from Hector,' or * I am stronger than Hector.' Each of these 
 cases, moreover, has many other different uses ; but they have re- 
 ceived their names from their most general and familiar use, as we see 
 happen in many other things." 
 theworS of *90. ^ rom tm s enumeration, it is observable that the sort of 
 case. declension which the ancients called case, not only expressed the 
 
 relation of nouns to each other, but also that which they bore to 
 verbs, as agent or object; and lastly, their use in the expression of 
 passion, without reference either to another noun or to a verb : in 
 order to explain the reasons of which it will be necessary to observe, 
 that the meaning of the word casus, which we render case, is, pro- 
 perly, the falling or declining from a perpendicular line. Thus, if the 
 simple notion of the noun be supposed to be expressed by an upright 
 straight line, as in the letter I , the other cases may be supposed to 
 be expressed by lines obliquely declining one way or the other, as in 
 the letter V. 
 Nominative. 191. It was long disputed among the ancient grammarians, whether 
 the nominative should, or should not, be called a case. On the one 
 hand it was urged, that conceptions are only expressed by speech, in 
 some one of the forms called cases, including the nominative ; and 
 that of these forms, the nominative expressing the agent of the verb 
 active was the simplest, and was, therefore, used whenever there was 
 occasion simply to name a thing or person. Thus we should not say, 
 that the name of the person slain by Marcus Brutus was Ccesaris, or 
 Ccesari, but C&sar. Those, on the contrary, who called it a case, 
 contended that every expression of a conception in speech was a 
 declension, or falling away from the simple conception in the mind, 
 which, taken by itself, does not imply either action, or passion, or 
 relation. Thus, before I can assert anything whatsoever of Caesar, I 
 must form the conception or thought of " Csesar" as a person ; but 
 when I put that thought to another, when I mention the wife " of 
 Caesar," or the friends who were faithful " to Caesar," or those who 
 revolted "from Caesar;" or assert that " Caesar conquered," or that 
 " Caesar was killed;" or express a feeling of any sort by the excla- 
 mation " Caesar " — on these and all such occasions my conception 
 declines from its original simplicity, and consequently my expression 
 should be said to decline, or fall away from the pure noun. They 
 added, moreover, that it was not always the simplest form of the 
 
CHAP. V.] OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. 89 
 
 noun, but was sometimes more distant from the radical, and therefore 
 more deserving of the appellation of oblique than some other cases ; 
 as, for instance, the vocative or ablative, which latter some writers 
 have considered as the primary and original case of the noun. 
 
 192. Since the notion of action implies the notion of an agent, there Agent or 
 must be a form of the noun which denotes the agent to every verb in Ject " 
 a simple sentence. The action, however, may be represented as pro- 
 ceeding from the agent, or as received by the object. On the former 
 supposition, it becomes a verb active, and the nominative case is the 
 
 form of the noun which denotes the agent. On the latter suppo- 
 sition, it becomes a verb passive ; and the nominative case is the 
 form of the noun which denotes the object. Thus, " Caesar fights," 
 " Caesar is killed," are two simple sentences, in both of which Caesar 
 is the nominative case. In the former, the word Caesar signifies the 
 agent that fights ; in the latter, the same word Caesar signifies the 
 object that is killed. In both instances the nominative is essential to 
 the completion of the sentence ; for when we speak of fighting, as 
 proceeding from an agent, we must necessarily express that agent ; 
 and when we speak of being killed, as received by an object, we must 
 express the object. Hence the trivial rule, that the nominative 
 answers to the question who, or what ; as " Caesar fights." Who 
 fights? — Caesar. "Caesar is killed." Who is killed? — Caesar. It 
 is justly observed by Harris, that the character of the nominative may 
 be learnt from its verb. The action implied in the verb " fights," shows 
 the nominative " Caesar" to be an active efficient cause. The suffer- 
 ing implied in the words " is killed," shows the nominative " Caesar " 
 to be a passive subjcet. Persons may be considered in both these 
 lights ; as Caesar is active in the one instance, and passive in the 
 other. But Things cannot, except figuratively, be considered other- 
 wise than as passive, and, consequently, can only become nominatives 
 to passive verbs; as we may say, "the house is built;" but we 
 cannot say, " the house builds." 
 
 193. The nominative is the most essentially necessary of all cases ; Nominatives 
 and it has therefore been described as " that case without which 
 
 there can be no regular and perfect sentence." The sentences 
 in which we make the positive it serve for a nominative, and 
 which the Latins used without any nominative at all, as pluit t 
 "it rains;" tcedet me, "it wearies me," or " I am wearied;" are 
 imperfect sentences, which I shall hereafter consider separately. In 
 all other instances, although it may not be necessary to express the 
 object to which an action is directed, or the agent from which a suf- 
 fering proceeds, yet the converse is absolutely necessary : thus, when 
 we say, " William builds," it is not necessary to add " a house," or 
 " a palace ;" but if we say " builds a house," or " builds a palace," 
 it is necessary to prefix the name of the builder. 
 
 194. In order, however, to extend and enlarpe a sentence, it often Accusative 
 
 " and Ablative. 
 
Primary and 
 Secondary. 
 
 Dative, &c. 
 
 90 OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. [CHAP, V. 
 
 becomes necessary to state the object of a verb active, or the agent of 
 a verb passive. Hence arises the necessity for two other cases, which 
 have been called the accusative and the ablative. When I say there 
 is a necessity for such cases, it will be understood, from what I have 
 before observed, that I do not contend for the necessity of any par- 
 ticular terminations, or inflections, or prepositions, or arrangement 
 of words, to mark these varieties of case ; I only mean, that it is 
 necessary, that by some means or other the noun, which indicates 
 the conception, should be placed in such or such a relation to the 
 verb which constitutes the assertion. It may happen, and, in point 
 of fact, it does happen in some languages, that there are no inflec- 
 tions of case ; but there are means in all languages of determining 
 when a noun is the object of an active, or the agent of a passive verb. 
 It has, indeed, been disputed, whether the cases of nouns should be 
 reckoned according to the relation in which they stand to other words, 
 or according to the diversity of their inflections ; nor are there wanting 
 names of high repute on either side of this question. Sanctius con- 
 tends, that there is a natural partition of cases, according to the 
 relations which they imply, and, consequently, that there must neces- 
 sarily be the same number of cases, which he estimates to be six, in 
 all languages. Vossius objects to this reasoning, and alleges, that if 
 the cases of nouns were to be reckoned by the relations which they 
 bear to other words, they must be endless. This contest, like many 
 others, has arisen from confounding Universal Grammar with Par- 
 ticular. The difference of inflection, or position, belongs to the latter ; 
 that of signification to the former. True it is, that the relations of 
 nouns to other nouns and to verbs are infinite ; but yet they are dis- 
 tinguishable into certain great classes ; and whether these classes 
 ought or ought not to be called cases is a mere verbal dispute. I 
 shall so designate them, for the sake of convenience ; at the same 
 time it must be understood that this arrangement is not intended to 
 interfere with the Grammar of any particular language, in which the 
 cases are arranged according to their inflections. 
 
 195. In my sense of the word case, then, the nominative, that is, 
 the agent of the active, or object of the passive verb, may be called 
 the primary case; and the secondary cases are the accusative and the 
 ablative, in so far as they perform the functions above noticed. These 
 two cases, it is to be observed, are respectively convertible with the 
 nominative, by a change of the verb from active to passive ; for 
 " James loves John" is convertible with " John is loved by James;" 
 the accusative of the first being the nominative of the second, and the 
 nominative of the first being the ablative of the second. 
 
 196. So the matter stands in the simpler combinations of thought; 
 but let us consider what is to be done, if in one and the same sen 
 tence we wish to express not only the agent and object of any action, 
 but also the end to which the action is directed : the cause on account 
 
CHAP. V.] OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. 91 
 
 of which it happens, or the instrument, mode, and circumstances of 
 its performance. For these purposes it is necessary that the concep- 
 tion of such end, or cause, or instrument, &c, should be expressed by 
 a noun ; and that some means should be adopted to show whether 
 the noun was meant to stand in the relation of end, cause, or instru- 
 ment, or in any other relation to the verb. It is, as Vossius justly 
 observes, quite impossible that any language should have separate 
 inflections for all these relations, and therefore some of them are, in 
 most languages, represented by separate words, or particles, com- 
 monly called prepositions ; but others are often expressed by inflec- 
 tions, the number and diversity of which vary exceedingly in different 
 languages, as will be shown hereafter. 
 
 197. Thus have I noticed three classes or degrees of relation in Genitive, 
 which the noun may stand to the verb ; but it may also be related to 
 another noun, as depending on, or belonging to it. Thus the words 
 
 " Priam's kingdom," " the son of William," mark a dependence of 
 "son" on "William," and of " kingdom" on " Priam." This rela- 
 nion is expressed by a separate inflection in Greek, Latin, English, 
 and many other languages ; and it is commonly called the genitive 
 case. Now the use of the genitive case in nouns substantive differs 
 but little from the use of an adjective. It expresses one conception, 
 as dependent on another, and the expression of the latter serves to 
 individualise and specify the former. The dependent conception is 
 therefore, in fact, a mere attribute of the other, and consequently the 
 genitive is easily convertible into an adjective. Thus the words 
 BaaiXeoQ ^Kfj-n-rpor, regis sceptrum, the king's sceptre, are easily con- 
 verted into ^.Ki]Trrpov BaciAe/cov, sceptrum regium, the kingly sceptre. 
 For the same reason, we find that in some languages, the Chinese, 
 for example, the adjective is in no manner distinguished from the 
 genitive or possessive case of a substantive ; for it is said that 
 the word had signifies goodness, and gin signifies man ; but hao gin 
 is a good man, or man of goodness ; and gin hao is human good- 
 ness, or the goodness of man. Hence, too, we see why Wallis con- 
 siders the English genitive case as a possessive adjective ; e.g., " the 
 king's court," aula regia, where he differs from all other English 
 grammarians, in calling the word "king's" an adjective. On the 
 other hand, Lowth reckons the words mine and thine, which are 
 usually called adjectives, as the possessive cases of me and thee. It is, 
 perhaps, from a similar cause that Dr. Jonathan Edwards asserts the 
 Muhhekaneew or Mohegan Indians to have no adjectives at all in 
 their language ; a fact on which Mr. Home Tooke lays great stress, 
 but which, in reality, proves nothing as to the signification of language, 
 whatever it may do as to its forms or inflections. 
 
 198. It seems hardly necessary to distinguish the vocative case by Vocative, 
 any particular inflection. Indeed, we find the terminations of the 
 nominative and accusative equally employed in Latin as exclamatory : 
 
92 OF NOUNS SUBSTANTIVE. [CHAP. V. 
 
 and it is said that the Sanscrit grammarians do not allow the vocative 
 to be a case. Yet, when we are speaking of the different relations 
 which a noun may bear to other words in a sentence, it is impossible 
 to overlook its use in those sentences where it stands forth promi- 
 nently as the object addressed or invoked. Thus, in the first ode of 
 Horace, we find two verses almost wholly occupied with vocatives : — 
 
 Maecenas, atavis edite regibus, 
 
 et presidium, et dulce decus meum ! 
 
 So Plautus uses it as an interjection, "Io! Hymen! Hymensee !"* 
 From which, and many similar instances, it might be called the inter- 
 jectional case. 
 
 * Casna, a. 4, sc. 3, v. 3. 
 
( 93 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 OF NOUNS ADJECTIVE. 
 
 199. I have said that the noun adjective is the name of a concep- Definition, 
 tion or thought, considered as a quality or attribute of another con- 
 ception. In more popular language, it is a word added to a 
 substantive to designate a quality, which distinguishes it from some 
 other substantive of the same class, as a red house, a lovely lady, the 
 moneyed interest, the fiftieth regiment ; where red, lovely, moneyed, 
 and fiftieth are all adjectives. In order fully to uuderstand this defi- 
 nition, it will be proper to advert once more to the nature of a simple 
 enunciative sentence or logical proposition. The subject, or that con- 
 cerning which something is asserted, is always a noun substantive ; 
 the predicate may be a noun adjective. Thus, in the sentence " John 
 is tall," the subject is " John," which is a noun substantive ; the pre- 
 dicate is "tall," which is a noun adjective. Complex sentences are 
 resolvable into more simple ones : and where adjectives are used, so 
 as to render a sentence complex, they are always resolvable into the 
 predicate of a logical proposition. Thus, if it be said that " a wise 
 man is cautious," this sentence is resolvable into the two simple 
 sentences " a man is cautious," and " that man is wise," and in each 
 of these the adjective is the predicate of the proposition. Adjective. 
 
 200. The inferences to be drawn from this statement are several. Not the 
 In the first place, whenever the name of a conception is employed as proposition^ 
 the subject of a proposition, it is not an adjective. Thus, the con- 
 ception expressed by the words "good" and " goodness" is the 
 
 same ; but if we predicate anything of this conception ; if, for in- 
 stance, we say " goodness is amiable," the word goodness must 
 necessarily be a substantive. And this does not depend on the form 
 of the word ; for if the idiom of our language allowed us to say 
 "good is amiable," or "the good is amiable," the word "good" 
 would be as much a substantive as " goodness." 
 
 201. Hence it follows, that the distinction between a substantive Mode of _ 
 and an adjective does not necessarily depend on any difference between viewlng 
 the conceptions which they express, but between the different modes 
 
 in which those conceptions are contemplated by the mind. If we 
 contemplate goodness as a separate idea, if we assert anything of that 
 idea, if we make it the subject of any proposition, then it is a sub- 
 stantive ; but if we predicate it of anything else, if we consider it 
 only as a quality of that thing, then it is an adjective. 
 
 202. Hence, again, it follows, that an adjective and a substantive Notcon- 
 cannot be convertible, without wholly changing the meaning of the 
 proposition in which they are employed. Thus, to say that " envy 
 
94 OF NOUNS ADJECTIVE. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 is criminal," and that *' criminality is envious," are two propositions 
 entirely different. 
 Cannot stand 203. It is equally a rule of Universal and of Particular Grammar, 
 that an adjective cannot stand alone, but must be joined with its sub- 
 stantive; which is, in truth, no more than saying, that a predicate 
 must necessarily refer to some subject. Mr. Tooke, however, con- 
 troverts this rule, though it is certainly as old as the words adjective 
 and substantive. He objects, that the rule equally applies to the 
 oblique cases of nouns substantive, and that therefore " the inability 
 to stand alone in a sentence is not the distinguishing mark of an 
 adjective ;" but, though it were not a distinguishing mark, it might 
 yet be a rule common to all adjectives. However, the real intent of 
 the rule is to distinguish adjectives from the substantives with which 
 they are used, and that in the most simple sentences ; and with re- 
 ference not to their form or inflection, but to their signification. Thus, 
 if we say " a golden is valuable," the sense is incomplete, and the 
 adjective "golden" requires the addition of a substantive, as, for 
 instance, " ring," to render it intelligible. On the contrary, if we 
 say "gold is valuable," the sentence is perfect. 
 Have not 204. Mr. Tooke contends that " the adjectives golden, brazen, silken, 
 
 meaning. uttered by themselves, convey to the hearer's mind, and denote the 
 same things as gold, brass, and silky The short answer to this is, 
 that it is contrary to common sense and experience to confound these 
 terms together; and nobody ever does so, who understands the 
 English language in the slightest degree. But if we wish to trace the 
 source of Mr. Tooke's error, we must examine more particularly his 
 expressions. First, what does he mean by " uttered by themselves ?" 
 Words uttered by themselves are like syllables or letters uttered by 
 themselves. They are the mere elements of discourse. Their proper 
 force and effect in rational speech must depend on their connection 
 with each other. Again, what is meant by " denoting the same 
 things?" In so far as they are both of the same origin, there is 
 doubtless a common conception to which they both bear relation ; 
 but it does not follow that they both bear the same relation to it. A 
 numerous tribe of words derived from, or connected with, this term, 
 gold, is to be found in the different European languages. Is it to be 
 said that they all " convey to the hearer's mind and denote the same 
 things ?" Let us see how this can possibly be made out. From (1) 
 the splendour of the rising or setting sun, was denominated (2) the 
 yellow colour resembling that splendour. From the name of that 
 colour, was derived (3) that of the jaundice, which rendered the 
 whole body yellow, and (4) that of the gall, which produced the 
 jaundice. From yellow also came (5) the name given to the yolk ot 
 an egg. And again, from this colour came (6) the name of gold. 
 Gold, being the most precious of metals, gave its name (7) to riches 
 in general ; and particularly (8) to money. Hence were denominated 
 all kinds of payments, whether (9) voluntary gifts, or (10) offerings, 
 
CHAP. VI.] OF NOUNS ADJECTIVE. 95 
 
 or (11) tribute, or (12) rent, or (13) fines; as well as (14) debts 
 due on any of these accounts. In process of time, certain societies 
 were formed and maintained by regular payments from each member, 
 and these societies received their name (15) from this circum- 
 stance. The name was afterwards extended to societies (16) or 
 fellowships in general ; and it occasioned the peculiar designation of a 
 building (17) in London, where they assembled. Fines in ancient 
 times were applied, in the nature of punishment, to almost all 
 crimes ; and hence their name came to signify (18) punishment in 
 general; and particularly a barbarous mutilation (19) often used as a 
 punishment. Lastly, the general term for punishment was naturally 
 applied to the criminality (20) by which the punishment was occa- 
 sioned. In a future part of this work I shall trace these progressive 
 changes of signification, as they are to be found in the Maeso-Gothic ; 
 Anglo-Saxon ; Alamannic ; Lombardian ; Precopian ; Greek ; Latin, 
 old, middle, and barbarous ; Suevian ; Swedish ; Icelandic ; Russian ; 
 German ; Dutch ; Welsh ; Italian ; old and modern French, and old 
 and modem English. Every change of application is occasioned by a 
 new operation of the mind. The sound of the word conveys a new 
 thought, similar indeed to the preceding, and having reference to the 
 same conception, but placing it in a new light. It would be absurd 
 to say that the thought remained the same through all these different 
 uses ; and it is equally incorrect to say, that it remains the same after 
 any one step. There is as real, though not the same difference be- 
 tween " gold" and " golden," as there is between "a guilder" and 
 " Guild-hall." If Mr. Tooke were right, to gild a thing would be to 
 convert it into gold : whereas these words, though of the same origin, 
 are so far from denoting the same conceptions, that they are often 
 used in direct opposition to each other. " Is this gold? — No, it is 
 only gilt." So gold and golden are not the same. They both, 
 indeed, refer to the same conception ; but they refer to it in different 
 ways. In the one instance, the conception (namely gold) is the very 
 thing of w 7 hich we are speaking ; it is the logical subject of the pro- 
 position ; the mind looks at it, as it were, directly ; as when Bassanio 
 says, 
 
 Thou gaudy gold, 
 
 Hard food for Midas — I will none of thee. 
 
 Whereas, in the other case, it is noticed but incidentally, as a 
 thought passing over, and giving a momentary tinge to another 
 thought, but differing from it as the light in which we view a sub- 
 stance differs from the substance itself. So the same Bassanio, in 
 the same scene, speaking of his mistress's portrait, says, 
 
 here in her hair, 
 
 The painter plays the spider, and hath woven 
 
 A golden mesh to entrap the hearts of men. 
 
 205. From what has been already said, it will easily be under- How treated 
 stood that these secondary thoughts, which are expressed by adjectives, tfvel. bstan " 
 
Necessary to 
 language. 
 
 Agreeing- 
 with sub- 
 stantive. 
 
 96 OF NOUNS ADJECTIVE. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 may be brought more distinctly before the mind, and treated as sub- 
 stantives in connection with other substantives. It is thus that 
 instead of " a virtuous man," we may say "a man of virtue;" but 
 though there appears, in this instance, very little difference of mean- 
 ing, yet, on analysing the two expressions, we shall find that a new 
 and distinct operation of the mind is performed, which operation is 
 here expressed by the word " of." We do not merely, as in the case 
 of the words " virtuous man," contemplate the conception of " man " 
 as a substance, and that of " virtue " as a quality belonging to the 
 individual in question ; but we contemplate " man " as having a sub- 
 stantial existence, and " virtue " as having an existence capable of 
 coalescing with man ; and further, we contemplate the actual union of 
 these two thoughts, as expressed by the word " of." Slight, there- 
 fore, as the difference of meaning is between the words " a man of 
 virtue " and " a virtuous man," yet the grammatical difference is not to 
 be overlooked : and the best proof of this will be to consider how 
 totally the style of any author would be altered if we were always to 
 change the genitive case of the substantive into an adjective, and vice 
 versa. Suppose that, instead of the line, 
 
 The quality of mercy is not strained, 
 we were to say, " the merciful quality is not a quality of compul- 
 sion," we should certainly not augment the force and beauty of the 
 language ; and we should as certainly change the flow and current of 
 the thought ; we should alter the Grammar, and annihilate the poetry. 
 
 206. The preceding remarks, too, show the absurdity of asserting 
 that " adjectives, though convenient abbreviations, are not necessary 
 to language," and that " the Mohegans have no adjectives in their 
 language ;" for though this latter fact is vouched by " Dr. Jonathan 
 Edwards, D.D., pastor of a church in Newhaven, and communicated 
 to the Connecticut Society of Arts and Sciences, and published by 
 Josiah Meigs," it amounts really to this, that the Mohegans cannot 
 distinguish subject from predicate, or substance from quality ; and if 
 so, they must be utterly destitute of the faculty of reason, which 
 probably neither Dr. Edwards, nor Mr. Meigs, nor Mr. Tooke in- 
 tended to assert. The only conceivable ground for the Keverend 
 Doctor's assertion is, that the Mohegans employ the same word in a 
 substantive and adjective sense, as we say " there is a calm,'"' and 
 "the day is calm'' the weather "is cold" and I have " a cold;" or 
 figuratively, as " silver locks," the " honey-moon" " angel visits," 
 " serpent error," " infans pud or," and the like. 
 
 207. It is a common rule, that the adjective should agree with its 
 substantive in gender, number, and case, whence perhaps, it might 
 at first sight be inferred, that gender, number, and case properly 
 belong as well to the adjective as to the substantive. This, however, 
 is not the fact : the adjective simply expresses a quality ; but it must 
 of necessity be connected in language with its substantive, and that 
 connection is effected in many languages by a similarity of inflection ; 
 
CHAP. VI.] OF NOUNS ADJECTIVE, 97 
 
 and when the inflections of the substantive express gender, or number, 
 or case, those of the adjective often follow a similar rule of construc- 
 tion. This construction, it is obvious, is a matter belonging only to 
 Particular, and not to Universal Grammar. It may exist in one 
 language and not in another ; and, in fact, there are languages (our 
 own, for example) in which all these variations in adjectives are 
 unknown. 
 
 208. On the other hand, a variation of degree belongs, in an Degree, 
 especial manner, to certain adjectives, but not at all to substantives ; 
 
 and where there are variations of degree, they may be compared to- 
 gether, whence arise, what are technically called by grammarians, the 
 degrees of comparison. 
 
 209. Substantives cannot be compared, as such, in point of degree ; Notappii- 
 for that would be to suppose that the nature of substantial existence substantives, 
 was variable ; and that one existing thing was more truly existing 
 
 than another, which is absurd. " A mountain," says Harris, " cannot 
 be said more to be, or to exist, than a molehill ; but the more and less 
 must be sought for in their quantities. In like manner, when we 
 refer many individuals to one species, the lion A cannot be called more 
 a lion than the lion B ; but, if more anything, he is more fierce, more 
 speedy, or exceeding in some such attribute. So again, in referring 
 many species to one genus, a crocodile is not more an animal than a 
 lizard is, nor a tiger more than a cat ; but, if anything, they are more 
 bulky, more strong, &c. ; the excess, as before, being derived from their 
 attributes. So true is that saying of the acute Stagyrite, ovk av em- 
 leyotTo i) ovala to jxaXKov kcli to t)ttov ; substance is not susceptible of 
 more and less." Sanctius, referring to this same passage of Aristotle, 
 observes, that we may hence infer that comparatives cannot be drawn 
 from nouns substantive. " Therefore," adds he, " they are deceived, 
 who reckon the words senex, juvenis, adolescens, infans, &c, as sub- 
 stantives, for they are altogether adjectives. Nor is it to be objected, 
 that Plautus has made from Pamus the comparative pamior ; for he 
 does not there mean to express the substantial existence of the Car- 
 thaginian, but his craftiness, as if he had said callidior ; for the Car- 
 thaginians were reputed to be a very crafty people. So the writer 
 who used the word Neronior, from Nero, meant only to signify an 
 excess of cruelty." 
 
 210. As substantives in general admit not of degree, so there are Nor to some 
 some adjectives which equally exclude either intension or remission. ad - iectlves - 
 Thus Scaliger justly observes, that the word " medius" can neither be 
 heightened nor lowered in degree ; and that the same may be said of 
 
 " hodiernus," and of many other adjectives. On this topic Mr. Harris 
 thus expresses himself: "As there are some attributes which admit 
 of comparison, so there are others which admit of none. Such, for 
 example, are those which denote that quality of bodies arising from 
 their figure ; as when we say a circular table, a quadrangular court, 
 a conical piece of metal, &c. The reason is, that a million of things 
 2. H 
 
98 OF NOUNS ADJECTIVE. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 participating the same figure, participate it equally. To say, there- 
 fore, that while A and B are both quadrangular, A is more or less 
 quadrangular than B, is absurd. The same holds true in all attribu- 
 tives denoting definite qualities, whether contiguous or discrete, whe- 
 ther absolute or relative. Thus the two-foot rule A, cannot be more 
 a two-foot rule than any other of the same length. Twenty lions 
 cannot be more twenty than twenty flies. If A and B be both triple 
 or quadruple of C, they cannot be more triple or more quadruple one 
 than the other. The reason of all this is, that there can be no com- 
 parison without intension and remission ; there can be no intension 
 and remission in things always definite : and such are the attributes 
 which we have last mentioned." This reasoning, which, as far as it 
 goes, is very just, seems nevertheless to require some further deve- 
 lopment. What is here meant by ' ' things always definite ?" Plainly, 
 what we have already called ideas, and those clearly conceived. The 
 idea of a circle, when clearly conceived, is a thing always definite. 
 By mathematicians it is clearly conceived; and consequently they 
 would think it absurd to say, that one table was more circular than 
 another ; but persons who have not a distinct idea of a circle would 
 not perceive the absurdity of the expression. To them, circularity 
 would appear capable of intension and remission ; and therefore they 
 would conclude, that this quality admitted of comparison as much as 
 sweetness or sourness, hardness or softness, heat or cold. Hence we 
 find in language such words as round, which expresses the idea of cir- 
 cularity in a vague and indistinct manner ; and these words are com- 
 monly used in the comparative and superlative, as well as in the posi- 
 tive degree. For the same reason, all words signifying bodily sensa- 
 tion are capable of comparison ; for though we agree generally in the 
 meaning which we attribute to them, yet there is no definite idea to 
 which any one of them can be distinctly referred. Men employ the 
 terms "hot, cold, white, black, green," &c, so as to convey to each 
 other's mind certain general notions, but not to communicate precise 
 and distinct ideas, like those expressed by the words, " square," or 
 " triangle." Again, in moral qualities there is usually the same indis- 
 tinctness. We say, one man is braver or wiser than another; 
 because we possess no absolute standard of bravery or wisdom. If 
 we possessed such a standard, that is to say, if we had a clear idea of 
 bravery, or of wisdom, we should simply say, that each of the two 
 was either brave or not brave, wise or unwise. There is no more 
 common comparison in all language than between that w~hich is good 
 and that which is better ; yet the pure idea of goodness presented to 
 us by the Christian religion excludes all comparison — "There is none 
 good but one, that is God." 
 Three 211. I have observed, that where there are variations of degree, 
 
 these variations may be compared together. Grammarians have fixed 
 three degrees of comparison — the positive, the comparative, and the 
 superlative ; and it seems material to observe, that the comparison 
 
 dekTees. 
 
CHAP. VI.] OF NOUNS ADJECTIVE. 09 
 
 here referred to is of two kinds. We may either compare a quality, 
 as existing in any given substance, with the same quality as existing 
 in other substances, or we may compare it with some assumed notion 
 of the quality in general. 
 
 212. The positive is the simple expression of the quality : and Positive. 
 Harris says, it is improperly called a degree of comparison ; but in 
 
 this he seems to be wrong ; for it is that form in which the compa- 
 rison of equal degrees of the same quality is expressed, either affirma- 
 tively or negatively. Thus we say, in the positive degree, " Scipio 
 was as brave as Cassar ;" " Cicero was not so eloquent as Demo- 
 sthenes." 
 
 213. The comparative expresses the intension or remission of any Comparative, 
 quality in one substance, compared with the same quality in some 
 
 one other substance, as " Cicero was more eloquent than Brutus ;" 
 " Antony was less virtuous than Cicero." Hence it is manifest, that 
 there are, properly speaking, two kinds of the comparative degree, one 
 expressing the more, and the other the less of the quality compared. 
 Languages in general have employed a peculiar inflection only to 
 express the former ; but the latter is in its nature no less capable of 
 expression : and both belong to those distinctions which constitute 
 Universal Grammar. It is to be remarked, that the comparative, 
 though it excludes the relative positive, does not necessarily include 
 the absolute positive. If we say " John is wiser than James," we 
 exclude the assertion, that " James is as wise as John ;" but we do 
 not necessarily include the assertion either that " John is wise," or that 
 '* James is wise." All that may really be intended by the affirmative, 
 is a negation of the negative. It may only be meant to assert that 
 " John is less unwise than James." 
 
 214. The superlative expresses the intension or remission of a quality Superlative, 
 in one thing or person, compared with all the others that are contem- 
 plated at the same time. There must be more than two objects com- 
 pared, but the number compared may be indefinite : we may say, 
 Octavius was the most prudent of the triumvirate ; Homer was the 
 
 most admirable of poets ; Solomon was the wisest of men. In other 
 respects, what I have observed of the comparative, applies equally to 
 the superlative, which may properly be considered as expressing the 
 most or the least of the quality in question, but which does not, any 
 more than the comparative, necessarily include the absolute positive. 
 Of this remark, the common proverb, " Bad is the best," affords a 
 sufficient illustration. 
 
 215. Hitherto I have only spoken of the comparison of qualities Comparison 
 existing in one subject with those existing in another or others ; but the genera " 
 comparison may be made with a general conception of the quality : and 
 
 here also may be three similar degrees. Where the quality is sup- 
 posed to be of the general or average standard, we use the positive ; 
 where we mean to imply simply an excess beyond that standard, we 
 use the comparative, which in English is commonly expressed by the 
 adverb too, as when Hamlet says, " Why mav not imagination trace 
 
 h2 
 
Names of the 
 degrees. 
 
 1 00 OF NOUNS ADJECTIVE. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 the noble dust of Alexander, till he find it stopping a bunghole ?" 
 Horatio answers " 'Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so ;" 
 that is, more curiously than is usual or needful. Lastly, where we 
 mean to express a high degree of eminence in the quality of which we 
 speak, we use the superlative, as vir doctissimus, vir fortissimus, a 
 most learned man, a very brave man ; that is to say, not, perhaps, the 
 bravest or most learned of all men that ever existed, or of any given 
 number of men; but a man possessing the quality of learning or 
 bravery in a degree far beyond the common standard. 
 
 216. It is of small consequence to inquire whether all these forms 
 of speech together are properly named degrees of comparison, and 
 equally immaterial whether the particular names, positive, comparative, 
 and superlative, are well chosen to designate each degree. Many 
 eminent grammarians have contended on these points. Vossius 
 objects to the name positive, because the two other degrees are 
 equally positive, that is, equally lay down their respective significa- 
 tions, whence the Greeks called the superlative hyperthetic, from 
 TiSivai, to lay down. Not more appropriate, says he, is the name 
 of the comparative degree, since comparison is applied to many words, 
 both nouns and adverbs, which are not of this degree, as the adjec- 
 tives, like, unlike, double; and among adverbs, equally, similiter, &c. 
 Moreover, comparison is effected no less by the superlative than by 
 the comparative : for it would be equally a comparison if I were to 
 say, speaking of Varro, Nigidius, and Cicero, " Varro is the most 
 learned of the three ;" as if I were to say, speaking of Varro and 
 Nigidius only, Varro is the more learned of the two." Lastly, the word 
 superlative is not well chosen, since it merely signifies preference, or the 
 raising one thing above another ; and in this sense the comparative itself 
 is a superlative ; for in saying, " Varro is more learned than Nigidius," 
 I prefer, or raise Varro above Nigidius in regard to learning. For 
 similar reasons, Scaliger proposed new names for the three degrees. 
 The first he called the aorist, or indefinite ; the second, the hyperthetic, 
 or exceeding ; and the third, the acrothetic, or highest degree. Quin- 
 tilian and others call the positive the absolute degree; others call 
 it the simple, and so forth ; but none of these names having come into 
 general use, I think it more convenient to hold to those which are 
 commonly received ; not considering the choice of a name as very 
 important, compared with the accuracy of a distinction ; and that 
 the three variations of adjectives in degree are essential to Gram- 
 mar, has been already sufficiently proved. 
 Comparison 217. It is of more consequence to note, that intension and remis- 
 butives". sion not being confined to adjectives, the degrees of comparison are 
 likewise not confined to them, but are common also to certain verbs, 
 participles, and adverbs ; in short, to the whole class of attributives 
 (as they are called by Harris), provided that, in signification, they 
 import qualities which may be increased or diminished. Thus, as 
 the adjective " amiable " admits of the comparative and superlative 
 " more amiable," and " most amiable ;" so we may use the ex- 
 
CHAP. VI.] OF NOUNS ADJECTIVE. 101 
 
 pressions " more loving," " most loving ;" " to love well," " to 
 love better," " to love more," " to love most of all." These indica- 
 tions of degree, however, have been rarely expressed by inflection, 
 except in adjectives ; and this seems to be the true reason why the 
 degrees of comparison have often, but inaccurately, been considered 
 by grammarians as belonging to adjectives alone. It is scarcely worth 
 while to occupy attention with such words as avrorarog, used by 
 Aristophanes ; or ipsissimits, employed by Plautus. Some critics, in- 
 deed, have seriously adduced these as examples of comparison in pro- 
 nouns, as if I could be more I, or he more he in reality ; whereas it is 
 plainly seen, that the comic writer, by a natural boldness in the use of 
 language, employs these pronouns in a secondary sense, as if they ex- 
 pressed a quality instead of a substance ; but not as if a man could be 
 more or less himself without losing his personal identity. 
 
 218. I come now to consider the two great classes into which ad- Kinds of 
 jectives may be divided ; and these, as I have before observed, depend a jec nes 
 on their expressing, or not expressing action. Thus, if we say " a 
 
 four-footed animal," although the quality of being four-footed has re- 
 ference, in this instance, to action, as its final end ; yet as it does not 
 express action (for a table or a chair may also be four-footed), this is 
 an adjective of the first-mentioned kind. On the other hand, if we 
 say " an animal moving" we clearly express that action is really taking 
 place : this, therefore, is an adjective of the second kind. Now, of 
 these two kinds, the former are exclusively called adjectives by the 
 majority of grammarians, and the latter are as commonly called par- 
 ticiples. I adopt these distinctive terms from an unwillingness to 
 alter the received nomenclature of grammatical science ; but at the 
 same time, I wish it to be clearly understood, that both the adjective 
 and participle of the common grammarians fall under the definition 
 which I have above given of the word adjective in its largest sense. 
 
 219. Of the adjective simple, or unmixed with any idea of action, Verbal 
 little remains to be observed ; but before I proceed to the considera- a •> ectlves - 
 tion of the participle, it may be proper to notice a large class of ad- 
 jectives, which, though they do not express action, yet bear reference 
 
 to it. Such are those words expressive of the capability or habit of 
 action, which Mr. Tooke has classed among the participles. There is 
 great hazard, when a writer chooses to treat all his predecessors 
 with contempt, that he may fall into gross errors himself. Mr. Tooke 
 has confounded, in his new scheme of participles, the verbal adjectives, 
 gerunds, and participles of former writers ; and, at the same time, has 
 laid down no clear definition of his own to guide us out of the 
 labyrinth. What is more, he has adopted as participles the verbal 
 adjectives in bilis, ivus, and icus, and excluded those in asc, arius, 
 bundus, icius, &c, which seem quite as much entitled to the same 
 distinction. 
 
 220. Upon a full consideration of all these different kinds of adjec- are simply 
 fives, there seems to be no reason for classing them apart from the simple a jec lveb ' 
 adjective, and as little for confounding them with the participle. They 
 
102 OF NOUNS ADJECTIVE. [cHAF. VI. 
 
 ought not to be separated from the simple adjective, because they do, 
 in fact, express only a simple quality ; and it is difficult, if not impos- 
 sible, to draw a line between qualities which are originally derived 
 from action, and qualities not so derived. Let us take, for instance, 
 the word falsus, false. No doubt this is derived from /alio, which 
 expresses the act of failing or deceiving ; yet, by a transition of mean- 
 ing, it comes to signify simply that which is not true. In like manner, 
 many of the words which Mr. Tooke treats as participles have been 
 really introduced into the English language as simple adjectives, with- 
 out the least reference to the action, which their radicals expressed in 
 other languages. Such is the word " palpable." We commonly say 
 " it is palpably false," *' the truth is palpable," &c. ; yet, perhaps, 
 few persons, when they use these phrases, entertain any notion of 
 feeling and handling the truth or falsehood in question, though palpare, 
 to feel or handle, is the undoubted origin of this word. The same 
 maybe said of "ductile," "frail," "sensible," "noble," and many 
 other English adjectives, which have not the slightest pretence to be 
 considered as participles. If the mere derivation from a verb is to 
 entitle a word to be called a participle, we should have numerous 
 classes both of substantives and adjectives so distinguished : for if 
 ductilis be a participle, because it is derived from duco, so is audax, 
 because it is derived from audeo ; ridiculus, because it is derived from 
 video ; and a thousand other adjectives. Nay, we may add to this list 
 the substantives derived from verbs, if the mere derivation is to be a 
 test of the grammatical use. Thus, we may say, that pistrinum, a 
 bakehouse, is a participle of pinso, to bake ; juramentum, an oath, of 
 juro, to swear ; judicium, a judgment, of judico, to judge, &c. In this, 
 as in numberless other instances, Mr. Tooke supposed the history of 
 words to be the science of language. Because noble is derived from 
 nosco, to know, therefore he called it a participle of that verb ! At 
 this rate, all the parts of speech must become an inextricable mass of 
 confusion ; for, historically speaking, each is derived from the other, 
 and there can be no rule which gives any one the precedence. If we 
 look to the signification, all is clear. Either a given adjective ex- 
 presses action or it does not. If it does not, it is a simple adjective ; 
 and the circumstance of its referring to the habit or capacity for action 
 cannot alter its character. The words " forcible " and " culpable" 
 relate originally to the actions of forcing and blaming ; but they relate 
 to them only as the ground-work of an existing quality, and not as 
 being really in action, or as having been so, or to be so, at any given 
 time. These considerations will probably suffice to clear away all the 
 difficulties which Mr. Tooke raised respecting what he called the 
 participles of the potential mood active, the potential mood passive, 
 the official mood passive, and the future active. They are all, as 
 used J n the English language, simple substantives, or simple adjectives : 
 and to rank them among participles, would not only be to oppose the 
 great majority of writers who have treated of these subjects, but to 
 confound all reasonable principles relating to this part of Grammar. 
 
( 103 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VIL 
 
 OF PAKTICIPLES. 
 
 221. Although, in accordance with the generality of the gram- Definition, 
 marians, I have enumerated the Participle as a distinct part of speech, 
 yet it is in truth (as may be seen by the Table in Chapter III.) a 
 subdivision of the noun agreeing with the adjective in expressing an 
 attribute or quality ; but differing from the adjective in expressing a 
 quality not simply, but as being, or having been, in action. Inasmuch, 
 therefore, as action implies time, the participle partakes, in this 
 respect, of the nature of the verb ; and hence it received the designa- 
 tion Participium, a parte capiendo, ; for, as was said, partem capit a 
 nomine, partem a verbo. The definitions given by many ancient gram- 
 marians of this part of speech were founded on its characteristics in 
 the learned languages. Thus Yossius says } " Participium est vox 
 variabilis per casus, significans rem cum tempore." But here the variation 
 per casus is a mere accident of the Greek and Latin tongues ; and the 
 word rem must not be taken as expressing a substance, but a quality. 
 The words cum tempore, indeed, apply to a principle of Universal 
 Grammar ; and, so far, the definition is correct. Upon the whole, 
 however, Spinosa's definition in his Hebrew Grammar is more worthy 
 of attention. He says, " Participia sunt Adjectiva, quo? actionem vel 
 omne quod Verbo significari solet tanquam Rei affectionem vel modum, cum 
 relatione ad tempus exprimunt." 
 
 222. The participle differs essentially from the verb in this, that The Participle 
 it simply names a conception, but does not assert anything concerning assert 1 . 
 
 it. The words, " loving, moving, reading, thinking," &c, assert 
 nothing respecting these acts ; they merely name the acts, or rather 
 they name the conceptions, as in action. It is said that the participle 
 should be ranked among nouns when it constitutes the subject of a 
 logical proposition, and among verbs when it forms the predicate ; 
 but this is not accurate : a participle, as such, can never form the 
 subject of a proposition. The example given is, Militat omnis amans, 
 Ildc 6 epiov TroXefxii ; but in this instance amans has an adjectival force, 
 agreeing with homo understood ; and it is the same in the Greek. 
 Again, when the participle is a predicate, as Socrates est loquens, it 
 equally fills the office of an adjective, and is not to be treated as a 
 verb, at least in the sense which I have attached to the latter term. 
 
 223. The adsignification of time is proper to the participle. This Adsignifica- 
 point, however, Mr. Tooke contests, upon the ground that the Latin 
 participles, present, past, and future, are not confined to the times 
 
 from which they respectively receive their designations. Proficiscens 
 is a participle of the present tense ; yet Cicero says, dbfui proficiscens, 
 
104 OF PARTICIPLES. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 thus connecting time present with time past. So profecturo tibi dedi 
 litems, connecting the past with the future : and again, quos spero 
 societate victories tecum copulatos fore ; where spero is present, copulatos 
 past, and fore future. None of these examples, however, prove any- 
 thing against the expression of time by the participles, but merely 
 that time is contemplated in various lights by the mind in one and 
 the same sentence. Thus, in the phrase abfui profciscens, the first 
 word relates to the time of speaking, and the second to the time of 
 acting. The going was present, when the absence (which is now 
 past) was present. Again, dedi refers to a time past ; but when 
 that time was present, the departure (expressed in profecturo') was 
 future. A thousand such cases as these would lead to no inference 
 whatsoever against the expression of time by the participle. It is 
 necessary to observe, however, that words which express time express 
 it in two ways, either as simple existence or as relative to the different 
 portions of duration. Thus, when we say " justice is at all times 
 mercy," the present is a mere expression of existence, a present con- 
 tinuous. So when we say, " the sun rises every day," we speak of 
 an act habitually present. It is the nature of the human mind to be 
 able thus to contemplate duration ; but this in no degree interfere^ 
 with, still less contradicts, the view which we take of different portions 
 of time, as past, present, and future, with relation to each other. The 
 assertion, for instance, that the sun rises every day, does not at all 
 clash with the assertion that the sun is rising at this moment. In 
 both cases time is referred to : a certain portion of time is designated 
 in the one case which coincides with the general assertion in the 
 other ; and, in fact, the difference between the two assertions does 
 not depend on the verb itself, but on the accompanying words 
 " every day" and " this moment." In these respects the verb and 
 participle agree. The participle is an adjective so far participating 
 the nature of the verb as to signify action, and it cannot signify action 
 without the capability of adsignifying time. 
 V a a r r tte?ies 224. Particular languages may or may not have separate words 
 
 adapted by inflection to signify the different portions of time in a 
 participial form. In truth, the notion of time is in all such cases a 
 new element in the compound conception, which compound con- 
 ception may be expressed by one word or by several. The com- 
 plexity of conception may go still further : it may include the 
 distinctions of active and . passive, of absolute and conditional ; and, 
 in short, all those which I shall have to consider when I come to 
 treat of the verb. Hence we see, that languages may have as great a 
 variety of participles, as they may of moods and tenses : and it does 
 not seem of the nature of language altogether to exclude participles 
 from the parts of speech ; for Mr. Harris is perfectly right in saying, 
 that if we take away the assertion from a verb there will remain a 
 participle. He is speaking of the signification, and not of the sound ; 
 and therefore Mr. Tooke's ridicule of this passage is entirely mis- 
 
CHAP. VII.] OF PARTICIPLES. 105 
 
 placed. It is an observation, as old as Aristotle, that the words 
 " Socrates speaks " are equal in signification to the words " Socrates 
 is speaking ;" but it is evident that the assertive part of this sentence 
 consists entirely in the word " is," which word being taken away, the 
 word " speaking " still expresses a quality of Socrates, and expresses 
 that quality in action, and is therefore a participle. And so it will 
 happen with every verb, as is instanced by Harris in the verbs, ypatyei, 
 ypcKpwv, "writeth," "writing." Tooke misrepresents Harris as 
 saying, that, by removing ei and eth, he takes away the assertion ; 
 whence he concludes, that Harris supposed the assertion to be im- 
 plied in those syllables ; but Harris says nothing about taking away 
 si and eth. He says what is very true, that the words ypacpei and 
 writeth imply assertions, and that in the words ypa0wv and writing, 
 the assertion is taken away ; and yet there remains the same time, and 
 the same attribute ; which expressions of time and attribute, without 
 assertion, constitute a participle. 
 
 225. It has been laid down as a rule by some writers, that there where no 
 can be no participles but what are derived from verbs ; and hence ing^erb!" 
 they deny that such words as togatus, galeatus, &c, are to be called 
 participles. Augustinus Saturnius, who treats particularly of this 
 point, calls them, by way of distinction, participials. It is manifest, 
 however, that this is a distinction altogether nugatory, in regard to 
 Universal Grammar. When Othello says 
 
 My demerits may speak unbonneted, 
 
 he uses exactly the same form of speech as if he had said uncovered, 
 and the one word is as truly a participle as the other ; for although 
 there may be no authority for the use of the verb " to bonnet," or 
 " to unbonnet," such verbs would be perfectly consistent with the 
 principles of Universal Grammar ; and, indeed, as much so with the 
 English idiom, as the verbs " to veil," and " to unveil," both which 
 are used by Milton. Uncovered, unveiled, and unbonneted equally 
 express an action of past time, viz., the removing the cover, veil, or 
 bonnet from the head ; and it is by this signification, and not by their 
 etymology, that the part of speech to which they belong is to be 
 determined. 
 
 226. We must not be surprised to find, that participles of different Passintoeach 
 classes pass into each other. Many active participles come to have a ot ier ' 
 passive signification. The word evidens, which was originally active, 
 is found with a passive meaning, from whence our common adjective, 
 evident, is derived. This is a circumstance not peculiar to participles ; 
 for when I come to treat more at large of those transitions of meaning, 
 which are the groundwork of sound Etymology, it will be found that 
 they apply to every part of speech indifferently. Men cannot always 
 find a separate term to express each distinct shade of thought, and 
 they naturally avail themselves of those expressions which come the 
 nearest to their meaning. 
 
Admit of 
 comparison. 
 
 Used sub- 
 stantively. 
 
 106 OF PARTICIPLES. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 227. From what has before been said on the subject of comparison, 
 it is clear that participles, as well as adjectives, when they express 
 qualities capable of intension and remission, may admit the three 
 degrees of comparison : thus we may say amantior as well as durior, 
 amantissimus as well as durissimus. It matters not, that in some 
 languages the idiom will not allow of expressing the degrees of com- 
 parison by inflection ; that, for example, in English we cannot say 
 lounger, or lovingest ; this is a mere accident of the particular lan- 
 guage, depending principally on circumstances connected with its 
 sound ; and it is to be observed, that however barbarous such words 
 as hunger or lovingest might sound to the ear, yet they would be 
 perfectly intelligible to the mind : there would be nothing absurd or 
 contradictory in the combination of the thoughts ; for the same com- 
 bination is effected by the words " more loving," and " most loving ; " 
 and in all languages there must be means more or less concise, or cir- 
 cuitous, to express such combinations. 
 
 228. We have seen how the conception of a quality considered 
 alone, and rendered the subject of assertion, becomes a noun sub- 
 stantive ; and this applies, in principle, as well to those qualities which 
 are expressed by participles as to those which are expressed by ad- 
 jectives. Whether the same or a different word shall be employed 
 for this purpose is, again, a matter of particular idiom. In English, 
 we use the very same word for both purposes. Thus, " singing," 
 " dancing," &c, may be used in construction as adjectives, or as 
 substantives of the sort commonly called abstract. We may say 
 " a singing man," " a dancing woman ;" or we may say, " singing is 
 an accomplishment," " dancing is a recreation," &c. In Latin, the 
 idiom is different : cantans, saltans, &c, can only be used in the 
 former of these two ways ; but, nevertheless, a similar principle is 
 observable in the use of what are called gerunds and supines. 
 
 Gerunds. 229. Scaliger gives the following account of the Gerund: "From 
 
 these (participles) our ancestors chose certain tenses, by means of 
 which they might imitate those Greek terms \ekteov, /xa^T/rcov, &c, 
 but with a more ample and extensive use. These they called gerunds, 
 assigning them to three cases, pugnandi, pugnando, pugnandum ; of 
 which the second preserved the power of a participle, but so much 
 the more aptly as the verbs were excelled by the participles. For, 
 as the cause of action is more plainly shown by saying ' ccedens 
 vulneravi,' than by saying cecidi, and better still by saying * quia 
 coederem vulneravi,' the whole of this is expressed by the gerund 
 * coedendo vulneravi.' Moreover, in many things the form and the 
 end are the same; but the end is partly out of us, as the ship is a 
 thing out of the ship-builder ; and partly within us, in our minds, as 
 is that which is called an idea, by which we are impelled to the 
 external end. Now both of these they very skilfully expressed ; for 
 both pugnandi and pugnandum signify the end. Thus I may say, 
 pugnandi causa equum ascendi, I mounted my horse for the purpose of 
 
CHAP. VII.] OF PARTICIPLES. 107 
 
 lighting ; or pugnandum est ex equo, I must fight (or the fighting must 
 be) on horseback." " Hence it appears that these (gerunds) are 
 participles, differing little from other participles, either in nature, or 
 use, or even in form." Again he observes : " Some writers have 
 called these gerunds from their use participial nouns ; for they are 
 neither pure nouns, since they govern a case, nor are they pure 
 participles, since, with a passive voice, they bear an active signi- 
 fication." 
 
 230. The same author thus speaks of the Supine : " Nearly similar Supir 
 is the explanation to be given of the Supines ; but these latter express 
 the same meaning more forcibly. Thus, eo ad pugnandum signifies a 
 future action ; eo pugnatum expresses the future so as to be quite 
 absolute." " Hence it signifies activity with actives, and passiveness 
 with passives : eo factum injunam, or injuria mihi factum itur ; but 
 indeed it always savours, in some degree, of passiveness ; for it does 
 not so much mean eo<ut faciam, as it means eo ut hoc fiat ; as if one 
 were to say, I am going indeed for the purpose of doing so and so, 
 but I hope it is already done ; and like Sosia's speech, Dictum puta, 
 " suppose it said." " Since, therefore, the end (or aim) of an action 
 was to be thus signified, the other extreme was not improperly ex- 
 pressed by a different word." Hence Scaliger explains the different 
 use of the supines in um and w, the latter of which he regards as a 
 sort of ablative case. " There is equally a movement," says he, 
 " from and to an object ; and therefore we rightly say venatu venio, as 
 we do venatum vado." He goes at length into these considerations, 
 opposing in some measure what other grammarians had said of the 
 supine in u ; but these questions are beside my present object : and 
 all that is necessary here to be shown is the chain of connection which 
 unites the participle, as an adjective, on the one hand with the noun 
 substantive, and on the other with the gerunds and supines. 
 
( 108 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 OF PRONOUNS. 
 
 Definition. 231. A Pronoun is a part of speech so called from the Latin Pro- 
 nomen, and the Greek Avrioyvjiia ; and agreeably to this derivation, it 
 is defined by the generality of grammarians, " a sign or representative 
 of a noun ;" for things (and persons), as Vossius observes, are con- 
 sidered in grammar as named by nouns. When, therefore, a pronoun, 
 such as he or it, is used to signify a person, for instance " Caesar," or a 
 thing, for instance, " a crown," the pronoun he is a sign or repre- 
 sentative of the noun " Caesar ;" and the pronoun it is a sign or repre- 
 sentative of the noun "crown;" and so forth. Aristotle, indeed, in 
 his treatise wepl 'Ep^nveiag comprehends the pronoun under the title 
 Noun. By subsequent writers, the term pronoun has been applied to 
 several classes of words, very distinguishable from each other ; and it 
 may be doubted, whether it would not originally have been better to 
 restrict its signification within narrower limits than those which were 
 adopted. Upon the whole, however, as the meaning has been so long 
 settled, I deem it advisable to follow the established usage. 
 
 Distinctions. 232. Of the many distinctions which have been made in this part 
 of speech, that which first demands attention, as essential, is into sub- 
 stantive and adjective, answering to the like division of primary nouns, 
 which has been already explained. Thus he is a substantive pronoun, 
 which may, standing alone, represent the primary noun substantive, 
 Socrates understood, and they is a substantive pronoun, which, standing 
 alone, may represent the primary noun substantive, Men, or Skips, 
 understood; whereas, in the expressions every person, any nation, 
 every and any are pronouns adjective, which cannot stand alone, but 
 agree, as adjectives, with the substantives "person," and "nation," 
 expressed. Some of the adjective pronouns, however, may be used 
 substantively, by a sort of ellipsis, which will presently be explained. 
 Pronouns 233. I consider as pronouns substantive all those which are com- 
 
 monly called personal, and distinguished as of the first, second, and 
 third person. Of this distinction the common account is, that the first 
 person is the speaker, the second the person spoken to, and the third 
 the person or thing spoken of. But this is not quite correct ; for 
 though the first person be in fact the speaker, and the second, the 
 person spoken to, yet, unless they are also spoken of, they do not 
 enter into the grammatical construction of a sentence. And again, as 
 to the third person's being spoken of, this is a character which it shares 
 in common with both the other persons, and which can never, there- 
 fore, be called a peculiarity of its own. To explain by an instance 
 
 personal. 
 
€HAP. VIII.] OF PRONOUNS. 109 
 
 or two. When iEneas begins the narrative of his adventures, the 
 second person immediately appears ; because he at once makes Dido, 
 whom he addresses the subject of his discourse. 
 
 Infandum, Begina, jubes renorare dolorem. 
 
 From henceforward for 1500 verses, (though she is all that time 
 the person spoken to) we hear nothing further of this second person, 
 a variety of other subjects filling up the narrative. In the meantime, 
 the first person may be seen everywhere ; because the speaker is 
 everywhere himself the subject : the events were, indeed, as he says, 
 those — ■ 
 
 Quae ipse miserrima vidi, 
 
 Et quorum pars magna fui. 
 
 Not that the second person does not often occur in the course of 
 this narrative ; but then it is always by a figure of speech, when those 
 who, by their absence, constitute, in fact, so many third persons, are 
 converted into second persons, by being introduced as present. On the 
 other hand, when we read Euclid, we find neither first person nor 
 second in any part of the whole work. The reason is, that neither 
 the speaker nor the party addressed (in which light we may always 
 view the writer and his reader) can possibly become the subject of 
 pure mathematics. 
 
 234. The clearest explanation of the different persons is that given by Priscian's 
 Priscian, who took it from Apollonius: Persona? pronominum sunt expar 
 tres, prima, secunda, tertia. Prima est cum ipsa, quae loquitur, de se 
 pronuntiat ; secunda, cum de ea pronuntiat ad quam directo sermone 
 loquitur ; tertia, cum de ea quae nee loquitur, nee ad se directum accipit 
 sermonem, 1. xii. p. 940. Theodore Gaza gives the same dis- 
 tinctions : TlpwTov (jip6au)7rov, sc.) u> 7rep\ kavrov <ppa£ei 6 \iywv' 
 ZivTEpov^ to 7repl rov, irpoc ov 6 \6yog. rpirov w Trap) eripov. Gaz. Gram. 
 
 1. iv. p. 152 : and this explanation is stated more at large by Harris, 
 whose words therefore, I shall, with a slight correction, adopt. 
 
 235. " Suppose the parties conversing," says he, "to be wholly First person, 
 unacquainted, neither name nor countenance on either side known ; 
 
 and the subject of the conversation to be the speaker himself. Here, 
 to supply the place of pointing, by a word of equal power, the 
 speaker uses the pronoun I. ' I write, I say, I desire,' &c. : and as 
 the speaker is always principal with respect to his own discourse, 
 this is called, for that reason, the pronoun of the/r.s£ person. 
 
 236. "Again, suppose the subject of the conversation to be the Second 
 party addressed. Here, for similar reasons, the pronoun thou is em- 
 ployed. ' Thou writest,' ' thou walkest,' &c. ; and as the party ad- 
 dressed is next in dignity to the speaker, or at least comes next to 
 him, with reference to the discourse, this pronoun is therefore called 
 
 the pronoun of the second person. 
 
 237. " Lastly, suppose the subject of the conversation neither the Thh-dperson. 
 speaker, nor the party addressed, but some third object, different from 
 
110 OF PRONOUNS. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 both ; here another pronoun is provided, viz. : he, she, or it, which, in 
 distinction from the two former, is called the pronoun of the third 
 person." " And thus it is that pronouns come to be distinguished by 
 their respective persons." But plain and intelligible, as this explana- 
 tion is, of the grammatical distinction of persons, it must not be under- 
 stood to imply that the actual conception of a person is subsequent, 
 in the human mind, to that of the noun which the pronoun represents ; 
 for, as has been observed, the notion of our own personal identity, 
 which is expressed by the pronoun, " I," is essentially necessary to 
 all consciousness ; and by an innate sympathy, we cannot but believe 
 other Persons to possess, like ourselves, each his own identity ; which 
 notion of identity we even transfer to 'Things, if they appear to us 
 under all circumstances to retain the same qualities. 
 £ the e wo g 238 * * fc wil1 not fail > nowever , to be observed, that there is a marked 
 former. difference between the third person, and the two former. The first 
 and second are strictly personal, the speaker must be a person, and the 
 party addressed must be at least personified, as when Satan addresses 
 the sun, — 
 
 thou, that with surpassing beauty crown'd, 
 Look'st from thy sole dominion ! 
 
 But the pronoun of the third person may represent either a person, 
 or a thing ; and that by the same word or a different one, according to 
 the idiom of the language employed. Hence, some grammarians dis- 
 tinguish pronouns in general into personal and demonstrative, including 
 in the former class only those of the first and second person, and re- 
 ferring those of the third person, together with all other pronouns, to 
 the latter class. This arrangement, in so far as it confounds sub- 
 stantive pronouns with adjective, I cannot approve. He or she may 
 stand as much alone in a sentence, as Peter or Jane, and may regu- 
 larly be made the subject of a proposition, and connected with an ad- 
 jective as its predicate. We may say indifferently "he is wise," or 
 "Peter is wise," "she is handsome," or "Jane is handsome." Nor 
 does the pronoun of the third person necessarily represent a noun un- 
 known, or a person or thing absent, any more than a pronoun of the 
 first or second person does. The name of the speaker (that is the 
 noun represented by the pronoun I) may be as little or less known to 
 tiie person addressed, as the name of the person or thing spoken of; 
 and, in point of fact, the speaker, the person spoken to, and the person 
 or thing spoken of, may be all present, and may as little need to be 
 demonstrated or pointed out, one as the other. Therefore, though a 
 pronoun substantive relating to a thing cannot in strictness be called 
 personal ; yet the grammarian will do right, who includes it under a 
 common head with pronouns of the first and second persons. 
 How coaiesc- 239. The characteristics of the three persons are not so entirely 
 separate, as to preclude a possible coalescence of the pronouns of dif- 
 ferent persons ; but this is subject to certain restrictions. The pro- 
 noun of the first or second person may easily coalesce with the third ; 
 
CHAP. VIII.] OF PRONOUNS. 1 1 1 
 
 but the first and second cannot coalesce with each other. For exam- 
 ple, we may say (and the difference of idiom in different languages 
 does not affect these expressions), "lam he," or, " thou art he ;" or, 
 as in the text, " art thou he that should come, or do we look for 
 another ?" But we cannot say, '* I am thou," nor " thou art I ;" the 
 reason is, that there is no absurdity in the speaker's being the subject 
 also of the discourse ; as when we say, " I am he ;" or in the person 
 addressed being so, as when we say, " thou art he ;" but that the 
 same person, in the same circumstances, should be at once the speaker 
 and the party addressed would be absurd; and, consequently, so 
 would the coalescence be of the first and second person. Some gram- 
 marians seem to have inaccurately supposed, that all but the personal 
 pronouns of the first and second person were to be considered as be- 
 longing to the third person. This, however, is inaccurate, at least 
 with respect to the relatives, who, which, that, as may be observed in 
 those lines of the old song : — 
 
 What ! you, that loved ! 
 
 And I, that loved ! 
 
 Shall we begin to wrangle ? 
 
 Where the relative that is of the second person in the first line, and of 
 the first person in the second line : and if translated into Latin, it must 
 be rendered, not tu quoe amabat, and ego qui amabat, but tu quo? 
 amabas, and ego qui amabam. 
 
 240. The pronoun adjective is distinguished from the pronoun sub- Pronoun 
 stantive, in the same manner as the noun adjective is from the noun 
 substantive, namely, by its inability to stand alone ; because it implies 
 some attribute or quality of a noun or pronoun substantive. It must 
 
 be admitted, that to determine whether a particular word, which 
 occurs in a speech or literary composition, should be considered as a 
 pronoun adjective, or a noun adjective, is not always very easy ; but 
 this, is rather a difficulty of idiom than of grammatical principle. 
 Without dwelling on this point, therefore, I proceed to notice the 
 most obvious distinctions of the pronoun adjective. 
 
 241. First, I consider that they are either positive or relative. By Possessive, 
 positive I mean those distinctions which regard the word as a member 
 
 of a single sentence ; and by relative, those which relate to another 
 sentence preceding or subsequent. The positive either depend on the 
 personal pronoun, and are commonly called possessive, or else serve to 
 limit general nouns, and may be called definitive. Some possessive 
 pronouns must be necessarily expressed or understood in all languages ; 
 for if it be necessary to have a pronoun personal, which is a word 
 representing a whole class of nouns substantive, it is equally necessary 
 to indicate (in some manner or other), the quality which consists in 
 belonging to that class. If every speaker must indicate himself by the 
 word /, or me, he must indicate what belongs to himself by some such 
 expression as mine or of me. Whether this be done by the former of 
 these two modes of expression, or the latter, is immaterial to the sense, 
 
112 OF PRONOUNS. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 and must depend on the construction permitted by the idiom of the 
 particular language ; but if such a word as mine or my be employed, 
 it must be regarded as a pronoun adjective, and indeed is treated in 
 many languages exactly as any other adjective is, at least in the positive 
 degree. For instance, meus, mea, meum, is declined in Latin exactly 
 as bonus, bona, bonum, is. Under the head of possessive pronouns may 
 be classed those which Vossius calls gentilia, such as nostrates, meaning 
 individuals of our race, family, or party ; as military officers in this 
 country often mention a comrade, as "of ours," meaning, " of our 
 regiment." 
 
 Definitive. 242. The definitive pronouns serve to limit general nouns, with re- 
 
 ference either to an individual simply, as when I say " this man," or 
 " that man ;" or else with reference to other individuals of the same 
 class, as when I say, " the other man," " every man." How far such 
 distinctions may be carried in practice, depends on the degree of cul- 
 tivation which particular languages may receive ; but some degree of 
 definition seems necessary to the formation of every language : and 
 from pronouns of this class is derived the definite Article, which will 
 be considered hereafter. The pronouns which limit with reference to 
 an individual simply may be called demonstrative, as they show the 
 individual intended, by reference to his own particular position, 
 situation, or the like. Thus, the words "this man" usually indicate 
 a person near, or present ; the words ' ' that man," a person more 
 distant, or perhaps absent. The pronouns which limit a conception 
 with reference to several individuals of a like class are distinguished 
 by Vossius into partitives, such as " either," " neither," " other;" and 
 distributives, such as " any," " some," " every." The distributives again 
 might be distinguished into general and numeral ; but these latter 
 form an important class, which I shall have occasion to consider 
 apart. 
 
 Subjunctive. 243. Of the relative pronouns adjective, those which relate to a 
 preceding sentence are commonly called subjunctive ; those which relate 
 to a future sentence are called interrogative. I say those which relate 
 to a sentence, and not those which relate to a person or thing ; because 
 in truth all but the pronouns of the first and second person must refer 
 to some person or thing previously indicated. When we say, ** he 
 reigned," or " she lived," we presume that the persons included by he 
 and she are previously known. These pronouns, however, may intro- 
 duce or lead sentences which do not depend on any previous sentence 
 in point of construction. But it is not so with the subjunctives. 
 They cannot introduce an original sentence, but only serve to subjoin one 
 to some other which has preceded it. The principal subjunctive pro- 
 nouns in English are who and which, and sometimes that. It does not seem 
 essential to the constitution of a language, however convenient, that 
 there should be such pronouns as these ; for they may be resolved into 
 another pronoun and a conjunction ; and consequently by such other 
 pronoun and conjunction their place may always be supplied. Let us 
 
CHAP. VIII.] OF PRONOUNS. 113 
 
 take the example given by Harris. I will suppose that it is desired to 
 combine into one sentence the two following propositions : — 
 
 1. "Light is a body." 
 
 2. " Light moves rapidly." 
 
 Here it is obvious that the use of the noun light, in the second pro- 
 position, may be supplied by the pronoun it, as thus : — 
 
 " Light is a body : 
 
 It moves rapidly.'* 
 This slight change, however, leaves the two propositions still distinct ; 
 let us then connect them by the conjunction and ; thus : — 
 
 "Light is a body; 
 
 And it moves rapidly." 
 
 Here is a connection of the two propositions, yet still not so much 
 dependence of the latter on the former, (not so intimate a union of 
 the parts,) as if, for the words u and it," we substitute the subjunctive 
 pronoun which ; thus : — 
 
 " Light is a body, which moves rapidly." 
 
 Accordingly, w T e see that in the punctuation, which most accurately repre- 
 sents the proper mode of reading the passage, we gradually diminish 
 the interval between the two propositions, from a period to a comma. 
 
 244. Of the nature of the subjunctive pronoun is the interrogative : interrogati 
 and therefore we very commonly find the same word performing these 
 two functions. Thus, in English, the subjunctives who and which, are 
 used as interrogatives, though with a remarkable difference in then 
 application. As subjunctives, in modern use at least, who is applied 
 to persons, and which to things. As interrogatives, they are both 
 applied to persons, but who indefinitely, and which definitely. Thus, 
 the question, " Who will go up with me to Ramoth-gilead ?" is indefi- 
 nitely proposed to all who may hear the question: but when our 
 Saviour says, ' ' Which of you, with taking thought, can add to his 
 stature one cubit ?" the interrogation is individual, as appears from 
 the partitive form of the words " which of you;" that is to say, "what 
 one among you all." These applications of particular words are 
 indeed matters of peculiar idiom ; but the distinctions of signification 
 to w T hich they relate properly belong to the science of which we are 
 treating. Interrogative pronouns are necessarily of a relative nature, 
 and on that account were ranked by the Stoics under the head of the 
 article ; but as they do in fact stand for, and represent nouns, they 
 are properly called pronouns. On interrogatives in general, Vossius 
 has the following just observation: — "It appears to me, that the 
 matter stands thus : there are two principal classes of words, the noun 
 and the verb ; and, therefore, to one or other of these every interro- 
 gation must refer. For, if I ask who, which, what, how many, I 
 inquire concerning some noun ; but if I ask where, whence, whither, 
 when, hoio often, I inquire concerning some verb. As, therefore, the 
 2. I 
 
114 OF PRONOUNS. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 words which are subsidiary to the verbs are called adverbs, so the 
 words which refer to the noun should be called pronouns." 
 
 Transition. 245. The number and variety of classes into which pronouns may 
 be distributed in any one language must, in a great measure, depend 
 on the classification of conceptions, which had become habitual among 
 the early formers of that particular language. Thus we cannot in 
 English express, without periphrasis, the Latin pronouns qualis, 
 quantus, &c, any more than we can the adverbs quoties, qualiter, &c. 
 Nor must it be forgotten, that many of these pronouns pass into 
 different classes, according as they are used in particular passages. 
 " Sunt ex istis," says Vossius, " quce pro diverso, vel usu vel respectu, 
 ad diversas pertineant classes" 
 
 Of Numerals. 246. This remark applies with peculiar force to the Numerals , 
 which, according to the different modes in which they are employed, 
 may be regarded either as nouns substantive, or else as pronouns 
 substantive or adjective, as the case may be. I have heretofore shown 
 the fundamental importance of the conceptions of number. These 
 conceptions must have names, and when the names are used to 
 express the mere ideas of number, as when we say, "one and one are 
 two" they may be considered as nouns substantive ; in the same 
 manner as the words line, point, angle, which are also names of ideas, 
 are considered. But when these nouns are used with an express or 
 tacit reference to some other noun, they become pronouns, either sub- 
 stantive or adjective. When we say, " two men are wiser than one," 
 or " many men are wiser than one," the numeral " two " is as much a 
 pronoun adjective as the word " many " is a noun adjective. But if 
 we say, generally, " two are more than one," the word two is a pro- 
 noun substantive. Numerals are commonly divided into cardinal and 
 ordinal ; I have hitherto spoken of the former, that is to say, of the 
 names given to our distinct ideas of number, simply as distinguishing 
 them from each other, as one, two, three, &c. ; but these same con- 
 ceptions, viewed with reference to order, form in the mind a class of 
 secondary conceptions, which are treated as qualities of the substances 
 to which they belong. Hence originate such words as first, second, 
 third, fourth, &c. These may be called pronominal adjectives. The 
 ordinal numbers are in general ■ derived from the cardinal numbers, 
 but not necessarily so ; for in many, perhaps in most languages, the 
 words first and second have no similarity to the words one and two. 
 Professor Bopp has observed " that whilst in the Indo-European class 
 of languages the greatest variety obtains in designating the cardinal 
 number one, they are almost unanimous in their designation of the 
 ordinal first, which none of those languages derives from the corre- 
 sponding cardinal."* Thus from the Sancrit prd comes prathama (first), 
 and from the Greek jrpo comes Trputrog. So from the Saxon fore comes 
 fore-est, first ; from, the Latin sequor comes secundus, second, &c. 
 
 * Bopp, Comp. Gram, i., 321. 
 
CHAP. VIII. 
 
 OF PRONOUNS. 115 
 
 247. Almost all pronouns, except tne first and second personals, Other , 
 are adjectives in origin ; but they do not continue to be such when 
 they stand by themselves, or as Lowth rather singularly expresses it, 
 " seem to stand by themselves." It is true, that in such cases, they 
 often have " some substantive belonging to them, either referred to or 
 understood;" but this only proves that they are pronouns. Whether 
 we say " this is good," " it is good," or " he is good," there is always 
 some noun referred to, or understood : and the words it and he " seem 
 to stand by themselves," just as much as the word " this " does. So 
 in the phrases " one is apt to think," and " /am apt to think," the 
 words one and i" equally " seem to stand alone," that is to say, they 
 equally do stand alone. They perform the function of naming an 
 object, so far as it is necessary to be named ; and they name it not as 
 a quality of another object, but as possessing a substantive existence. 
 The words this, that, who, which, all, none, and many of a similar kind, 
 are (in this view of them) substantive pronouns when they stand 
 alone, but adjective pronouns when they are joined to a noun sub- 
 stantive. When Antony says — 
 
 This — this was the unkindest cut of all, 
 
 I consider the word this to be a substantive pronoun. It may, 
 indeed, be explained by transposition, as if it were, " this cut was the 
 unkindest of all ;" but such is not the order of the thoughts : and, in 
 fact, the particular wound inflicted by Brutus had been before 
 described at some length, but the noun cut had not been used : and 
 supposing that, for dramatic effect, the line had been broken off at the 
 word " was," it would have been impossible to say that the pronoun 
 this had any specific reference to this particular noun cut, as we may 
 easily perceive by so reading the passage : — 
 
 See, what a rent the envious Casca made ! 
 Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabb'd ; 
 And as he pluck'd his cursed steel away, 
 Mark how the blood of Caesar followed it, 
 As rushing out of doors, to be resolv'd 
 If Brutus so unkindly knock'd, or no : 
 For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel. 
 Judge, ye gods, how dearly Caesar lov'd him ! 
 This — this was 
 
 If the passage had thus broken off, the pronoun this would have 
 rather seemed to refer to the whole narrative of the share which Brutus 
 had taken in the transaction ; that narrative presenting to the mind 
 one complete and definite conception. 
 
 A passage in Othello will further illustrate my meaning. lago 
 pretends to caution Othello against suffering his mind to encourage 
 any suspicion against his wife's honour : — 
 
 0, beware, my lord, of jealousy ! 
 
 It is a green-eyed monster which doth make 
 The meat it feeds on. 
 
Idioms. 
 
 116 OF PRONOUNS. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 After he has pursued this strain of reasoning for some time, Othello, 
 interrupting him, exclaims with surprise — ■ 
 
 Why, why is this ? 
 
 Evidently meaning, Why do you act thus ? Why do you talk of 
 jealousy to me, who am not at all disposed to be jealous ? The word 
 this cannot here be said to refer to any one noun that precedes, or to 
 any one noun that follows it ; and it is therefore most manifestly used 
 with the force and effect of a substantive. On the contrary, it is 
 clearly used as an adjective, in a subsequent passage, where Othello, 
 speaking of Iago, says : — 
 
 This honest creature, doubtless, 
 
 Sees and knows more, much more than he unfolds. 
 
 248. Whether the same or different words shall be employed to 
 express the substantival and adjectival form of pronouns is matter of 
 idiom. Thus, a language may, or may not, have different forms for 
 the personal and possessive pronouns. Lowth considers the word 
 mine as the possessive case of the personal I ; but the English word 
 mine answers to the Latin mens, which is certainly an adjective. On 
 the other hand, the Latin mi, which is commonly called the vocative 
 singular of mens, seems to be the same word with mihi, the dative 
 case of Ego ; for it is used in connection with plurals as well as sin- 
 gulars, and with masculines, feminines, and neuters indiscriminately. 
 Thus we have in Plautus, mi homines ; and in Petronius, mi hospites ; 
 and in Apuleius, mi sidus, mi parens, mi herilis (sc. film), mi conjux, 
 &c. ; and in a passage of Tibullus, the different manuscripts have, 
 some mi dulcis anus, and some mihi dulcis anus ; in all which instances, 
 the dative mihi seems to be intended to be used in that manner which 
 grammarians often, though incorrectly, call redundant ; and describe, 
 as adopted, nulla necessitatis, sed potius festivitatis causa. There are, 
 many other idioms relative to the use of pronouns which it is not here 
 necessary to consider, such as the combination of the adjective own 
 and the substantive self with the pronouns my, thy, &c, in English ; 
 and the subjoining the syllables met, cunque, &c, to certain pronouns 
 in Latin, as ipsemet, quicunque, &c, which are usually accompanied 
 with some corresponding change in the force of the original pronouns. 
 
 249. To the essential distinction of pronouns as substantive and 
 adjective, must be added the accidental distinctions to which, like the 
 nouns which they represent, they are liable, of number, gender, and 
 case. Since the pronoun stands in the place of a noun, and since 
 number is a conception which may be combined in general with nouns, 
 it follows that the pronoun may have the distinctions of number; nor, 
 indeed, is it easy to conceive a language so constructed as to have 
 pronouns without such a distinction. As to the first person, it is 
 clear that there may be many speakers at once of the same sentiment, 
 or, what comes to the same thing, one may deliver the common sen- 
 timent of many, and in their name ; for the same reason, therefore, 
 
chap, vru.j 
 
 OF PRONOUNS. 117 
 
 that the pronoun I" is necessary, the pronoun we is so too. Again, 
 the singular thou has the plural you, because a speech may be spoken 
 to many, as well as to one : and the singular he has the plural they, 
 because the subject of discourse often includes many things or persons 
 at once. 
 
 250. The pronoun is also susceptible of the distinction of Gender, Gender, 
 because the noun which it represents is so. A difference, however, 
 has been said to exist in this respect between the pronouns of different 
 persons : and the reasoning thereon is plausible. It is certainly true 
 that the pronouns of the first and second person, both in the dead and 
 living languages, have no distinct inflection expressing their gender ; 
 and the reason for this is alleged to be that the speaker and hearer 
 being generally present to each other, it would have been superfluous 
 to have marked a distinction by art, which from nature, and even 
 dress, was commonly apparent on both sides. " Demonstiratio ipsa," 
 says Priscian, " secum genus ostendit." However, it is by no means 
 true that the pronouns of the first and second person have no gender. 
 They have not, indeed, in any known language, inflections distin- 
 guishing them in point of gender, but they always take, in construc- 
 tion, the gender of the noun which they represent. Thus Dido — 
 
 cui me moribundam deseris hospes ? 
 
 And Mercurv addressing- ./Eneas — 
 
 Til nunc Carthaginis altas 
 
 Fundamenta locas, pulchramque uxorius urbem 
 Exstruis ? 
 
 It is agreed on all hands that the pronouns of the third person must 
 almost of necessity receive the distinctions of gender in all languages. 
 These pronouns are called in Arabic the pronoun of the absentee, and, 
 in fact, they usually refer to persons or things which being absent 
 require to be distinguished, as to gender, &c, by some expression in 
 the discourse. It is further to be observed, that the pronouns of the 
 first and second person each apply only to certain known and present 
 individuals ; whereas, the pronouns of the third person may, in the 
 course of one and the same speech, refer to a great diversity of 
 objects, requiring to be distinguished by their respective genders. 
 " The utility of this distinction," says Harris, "may be better found 
 in supposing it away." Suppose, for example, we should read in 
 history these words : he caused him to destroy him — and that we were 
 to be informed that the he, which is here thrice repeated, stood each 
 time for something different, that is to say, for a man, for a woman, 
 and for a city, whose names were Alexander, Thais, and Persepolis. 
 Taking the pronoun in this manner, divested of its gender, how 
 would it appear which was destroyed, which was the destroyer, and 
 which was the cause of the destruction? But there are no such 
 doubts when we hear the genders distinguished ; when, instead of the 
 ambiguous sentence, " He caused him to destroy him" we are told, 
 
118 OF PRONOUNS. TCHAP. VIII. 
 
 with the proper distinction, that " She caused Mm to destroy it." 
 Then we know with certainty what before we knew not, viz., that 
 the promoter was a woman ; that her instrument was the hero ; and 
 that the subject of their cruelty was the unfortunate city. 
 Case. 251. Case is another distinction, not essential to the noun, but 
 
 accidental. It is therefore to be ranked among the accidents of the 
 pronoun ; yet, so frequent is the occasion to use pronouns, that many 
 of them, especially those which are particularly denominated personal, 
 have the variations of case, even in languages which vary their nouns 
 in this respect very little or not at all. When a person speaks of 
 himself as the performer of any action, he seems naturally led to 
 adopt a different phraseology from that which he employs in speaking 
 of the action as done toward him ; and hence the difference between 
 / and me, thou and thee, runs throughout far the greater number of 
 known languages. After all, Universal Grammar only furnishes the 
 reason for this difference when it exists, but does not prove its exis- 
 tence to be necessary. There may be languages of which the pro- 
 nouns have no cases ; but where they have cases, the same function is 
 performed by each case in the pronoun as in the noun. 
 
( 119 ) 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 OF VEEBS. 
 
 252. A Verb is a part of speech, so called from the Latin verbum, Aristotle's 
 which seems to have been intended to correspond to the Greek 'Pfj/jta; 
 though the latter word was used by different Grecian writers in very 
 different senses. Aristotle defines 'Pri/xa, " a complex word, significant, 
 with time, of which no part is significant by itself;"* but this defini- 
 tion, which differs from that which he had before given of the noun, 
 only in the words " with time," is manifestly referable to the Greek 
 language, and not to Universal Grammar. Some philologists under- 
 stand Aristotle in one instance to apply the designation 'Pijfxa to the 
 adjective Xevkoq, white; but this seems to be a misapprehension. It 
 however led Ammonius to maintain that every word which forms the 
 predicate in a logical proposition is a 'Pijfia.^ . Some of the Stoics 
 contended that the only genuine ( Prj/j.a was the infinitive mood of a 
 verb. Others, again, disputed whether or not the copula, in a logical 
 proposition, should be deemed a 'Pjjjoca. Words answering this pur- 
 pose were called by most Greek writers 'Prifiara vwapKriKa, verbs of 
 existence ; by Latin authors, verba svbstantiva ; and in English gram- 
 mars, "verbs substantive:" but Aristotle seems, in his Poetics, to 
 refuse to them the title of 'Pr^uara, considering them, perhaps, as 
 mere ILvvlea^ioi, connectives. He defines the ^LvvleafioQ " a word 
 not significant, which is fitted to make of several significant words one 
 significant word" \ (or rather sentence). And further on he says, 
 "not every sentence consists of 'Pfyuara and nouns ;"§ "but it is 
 possible that there may be a sentence without a 'Pfjfia" || as an in- 
 stance of which (it seems) he refers to "the definition of man." f 
 The passage is rather obscure, but it would seem from the context 
 that he means this : — If we say " man is an animal," the sentence is 
 perfect, but there is no 'Pij/xa in it ; for the word "is" serves merely 
 as a connective to make of two nouns, "man" and "animal," one 
 significant sentence ; but in itself it signifies neither substance nor at- 
 
 * Qjovri eruvhrh (r>i/^a.vriz%, [/.ira. %govou, ris olTiv fi'ioo; trnfidivii xatf koto. Poetic, 
 s. 34. 
 
 j n£<7«v <p«»7;v ■/ia.T7 i yooovfx,ivov oqov Iv TooTKtrsi Totov/ritv 'Vrif^oc, xccXsTtr^ai. Ad 
 Arist., De Interp. 
 
 | #&/v/j ci/rvpo;, lx vXuovwv /u.\v tyuvuv fiia,;, irrifia-vrixav Be, Toiuv irity via. y/iav 
 fftifteivrixii* <p&»vsjv. Poetic, s. 34. 
 
 § Ob ycco a.7ra.% >Jyo$ \x or,uu.Tuv xki ovo/xcirwv trvyxurtxi. Ibid. 
 AAX' ivbi^iTcci clviu pv)f/.a.Ta)v kivxi Xoyov. I Old. 
 Oiov o tov uvfouvrou ooht/a'o;. Ibid. 
 
120 OF VERBS. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 tribute, neither does it mark time, and for these reasons it is not to be 
 deemed a 'Pij/jia. 
 latements. ^53. If these explanations of the nature of a verb are not very- 
 satisfactory, still less so is the manner in which this part of speech 
 was treated by Mr. Tooke. So early as the year 1778, he published 
 a letter to Mr. Dunning, in which he advanced some propositions con- 
 cerning language, which were thought at the time rather paradoxical. 
 These were amplified and extended in 1786, in the first volume of his 
 " Diversions of Purley." He there laid it down that "in English, 
 and in all languages, there are only two sorts of words which are neces- 
 sary for the communication of our thoughts, viz., the noun and the 
 verb." * He said, " he was inclined to allow the rank of parts of 
 speech only to these necessary words ;" "j" that "a consideration of ideas, 
 or of the mind, or of things, would lead us no farther than to nouns ;" \ 
 and that "the other part of speech, the verb, must be accounted for 
 from the necessary use of it in communication ; that it is in fact the 
 communication itself, and therefore well denominated 'Prj/jia, dictum ; 
 for the verb is QUOD loquimur, the noun De QUO."§ And with this 
 mysterious hint the readers of the first volume were obliged, so far as 
 regarded the verb, to be content. In that volume, and also in the 
 second, which was published in 1805, he asserted many words to be 
 moods, tenses, or participles of certain verbs (remarking, however, 
 incidentally, that mood, tense, number, and person, are no parts of 
 the verb), || but still the verb itself he neither defined nor explained, 
 further than by saying that it was " the noun and something more."TT 
 At the close of the second volume his supposed colloquial friend asks 
 this very pertinent question, " What is the verb ? What is that pe- 
 culiar differential circumstance, which, added to the definition of a 
 noun, constitutes the verb ?" Is the verb — 
 
 1. Dictio variabilis, quae significat actionem vel passionem? 
 
 2. Or, dictio variabilis per modos ? 
 
 3. Or, quod adsignat tempus sine casu ? 
 
 4. Or, quod agere, pati, vel esse significat ? 
 
 5. Or, nota rei sub tempore ? 
 
 6. Or, pars orationis prsecipua sine casu ? 
 
 7. Or, an assertion ? 
 
 8. Or, nihil significans, et quasi nexus et copula, ut verba 
 
 alia quasi animaret ? 
 
 9. Or, un mot declinable indeterminatif ? 
 
 10. Or, un mot, qui presente a l'esprit un etre indetermine, 
 designe seulement par l'idee generale de l'existence sous 
 une relation a une modification ?" 
 
 To all this Mr. Tooke replies — ■" A truce ! a truce ! I know yon 
 are not serious in laying this trash before me. — No, no, We will leave 
 
 * Div. Pari., v. i. p. 65. f Ibid., p. 67. + Ibid -> P- 70 - 
 
 § Ibid., p. 71. || Ibid., y. ii, p. 473. \ Ibid., p. 514. 
 
CHAP. IX.] OF VEEBS. 121 
 
 off here for the present ! " And so he did ; but never resumed the 
 discussion. 
 
 254. Surely, if the verb was one of the only two necessary parts inconclusive. 
 of speech ; if it was one of the two main pillars supporting the whole 
 
 edifice of language ; if Mr. Tooke himself had it constantly in view, 
 and referred to it in his three successive publications ; he might have 
 found time, between 1778 and his death in 1812, to have given the 
 disciples of his new school, which was to sweep away all the old 
 grammatical doctrines as " trash," a little more distinct information on 
 the nature of the verb, than that it was a noun, "and something 
 more," and that both it and the noun being equally necessary for the 
 communication of thought, the verb was distinguished from the noun 
 by the "necessity of its use in communication." A "something 
 more," of which we know nothing, is to common capacities just equal 
 to nothing : and to distinguish one of two necessary things from the 
 other, by the common attribute of necessity, is a mode of division no 
 less ungrammatical than illogical. 
 
 255. The verb has been differently defined (as we have seen) by Analysis, 
 different grammarians ; and indeed when we reflect on the variety of 
 conceptions, which it' often combines in one word, we must allow, 
 
 that this circumstance, " throws considerable difficulties in the way of 
 any person who attempts to analyse the verb, and ascertain its 
 nature."* The first step in such an analysis is to distinguish those 
 properties of the verb, which are essential to it, and are therefore ne- 
 cessarily to be found in all verbs, from those which are accidental, and 
 form different combinations in different languages. I consider as 
 essential properties of the verb, its power — 
 
 1st. To signify an attribute of some substance. 
 
 2ndly. To connect such attribute with its proper substance. 
 
 3rdly. To assert, directly or indirectly, the existence or non- 
 existence of the connection. 
 I consider as accidental properties, those which grammarians have 
 commonly designated by some such terms as kind, voice, mood, tense, 
 person, number, gender, &c. 
 
 256. The definition of a verb, so far as regards Universal Grammar, Attribute, 
 should be confined to the essential properties of this part of speech. 
 Before I attempt to define it, therefore, I shall examine those proper- 
 ties : and first, as to signifying an attribute. Here the term " attri- 
 bute " is to be taken largely, so as to include every conception, which 
 
 can be predicated of another in a simple proposition. Therefore, the 
 genus is to be deemed an attribute of the species, and the species of 
 the individual. Existence, too, whether absolute or qualified, is to 
 be deemed an attribute of the existing substance — absolute, as when 
 we say, " God is," or when God says, "I am;" qualified, as when 
 we say " God is almighty," " man is mortal ;" in both which cases, 
 
 * Encycl. Bntan., art. Grammar. 
 
122 OF VERBS. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 the word "is," forms a verb substantive. The attributes of qualified 
 existence are numberless. We may, however, divide them into those 
 which are qualified by conceptions of action, and those of which the 
 qualifying conception does not relate to action. Conceptions of action 
 are spiritual, as, to love ; mental, as, to know ; or corporeal, as, to 
 touch ; and they may be of a positive or negative character, as, to live 
 or die, to move or stop, to wake or sleep. Conceptions unconnected 
 with action are such as to be wise or foolish, to be hot or cold, to be 
 honest or dishonest, tall or short, beautiful or ugly. Now, the signi- 
 fication of an attribute belongs to a verb in one of two ways : it is 
 either added to the verb substantive as a necessary adjunct, or it is 
 involved in the form of a different verb. Propositions, in which the 
 attribute is a necessary adjunct to the vert;, are such as, " Socrates is 
 wise," " Cicero is speaking." These necessarily contain three words, 
 and have therefore been called, by some logicians, propositions tertii 
 adjacentis. Propositions, in which the attribute is involved in the 
 form of the verb itself, require but two words, as " Cicero speaks," 
 " Victoria reigns," and have been said to be secundi adjacentis. In 
 the former class, the attribute is absolutely necessary as an adjunct to 
 the verb ; for if we stop at " Socrates is," or " Cicero is," the sen- 
 tence is so imperfect as to be unintelligible. In the latter class, the 
 attribute is involved in the form of the verb, as in "speaks" or 
 " reigns." From what has been said, it is clear that the property 
 of signifying an attribute belongs essentially to the verb. Nevertheless 
 this property is not the peculiar and distinguishing characteristic of a 
 verb, for it equally belongs to adjectives and participles. 
 Connection. 257. The next essential property of the verb is that of connecting 
 the conception of an attribute with the substance to which it belongs ; 
 for it may have been observed in the instances above noticed, that 
 when an attribute was signified, it was signified not alone, but in con- 
 junction with the subject to which it belonged. If we say, " is " or 
 " is almighty," or " is speaking," or " speaks," or "reigns," without 
 showing to whom or to what these attributes belong, we utter no in- 
 telligible sentence. And this is so obvious, that no one ever denied 
 connection to be a property of the verb. Nay, some able philologists 
 have gone so far as to maintain .that connection is the characteristic 
 peculiarity of this part of speech.* From that opinion, however, I 
 must dissent. The verb not only connects, but it does more ; it de- 
 clares that the connected conceptions coexist as parts of one assertion. 
 The conjunction also connects, but it does not predicate one thing of 
 another, or make up one proposition of two distinct terms. Thus, 
 if we say, " he is good," the conceptions expressed by the words he 
 and good, that is to say, the conceptions of a particular man and of 
 goodness, are not only connected, but the one is asserted to exist in 
 the other, and to be a quality belonging to it. Otherwise is it in the 
 
 * Rees, Cycl. Grammar. 
 
CHAP. IX.] OF VERBS. 123 
 
 speech of the duke of Buckingham wishing happiness and honour to 
 his sovereign Henry VIII. 
 
 . May he live 
 
 Longer than I have time to tell his years ! 
 
 Ever belov'd, and loving may his rule be ! 
 
 And when old Time shall lead him to his end, 
 
 Goodness and he fill up one monument ! 
 
 Here the same conceptions, viz., those of a particular man and 
 goodness are connected, but the one is not asserted of the other, and 
 they make up no intelligible meaning when taken together, without 
 the further aid of a verb. We cannot assert without connecting our 
 thoughts ; for to assert is to declare some one thing of some other 
 thing, which cannot be done without connecting those things together 
 in the mind ; and therefore it is that connection is always one charac- 
 teristic of the verb ; but it is a secondary characteristic, being involved 
 in the more important property of asserting, declaring, or manifesting 
 real existence. 
 
 258. This brings me to that property of the verb which is not only Assertion, 
 essential to it, but is its peculiar and exclusive characteristic, and which, 
 I agree with Messieurs de Port Royal and other eminent grammarians, 
 is the power of signifying Assertion. It often happens in language, that 
 the veiy same identical word, the same in orthography, in pronuncia- 
 tion, and in accent, is both noun and verb. How then can we deter- 
 mine when it is the one, and when it is the other ? Very simply, and 
 very infallibly. When it directly or indirectly involves an assertion, 
 it is a verb ; when it does not it is a noun. The word love, in English, 
 is one of the words which I have just described. It is impossible to 
 tell, a priori, whether it will be a noun or a verb in any particular 
 discourse. We must wait to see how it is used, and then all doubt 
 will vanish. Thus, it is a noun in these exquisite lines : — 
 
 Love is not love, 
 
 Which alters when it alteration finds, 
 Or bends, with the remover to remove ; 
 Oh no ! It is an ever-fixed mark, 
 That looks on tempests and is never shaken. 
 
 And again, it is a verb, in the speech of the crafty Richard, alluding to 
 his unsuspecting brother : — 
 
 I do love thee so, 
 
 That I will shortly send thy soul to heaven. 
 
 259. When I say, that assertion is involved in the verb, either di- pirwtor 
 rectly or indirectly, I mean the word assertion to be taken largely, in 
 contradistinction to nomination. The noun names a conception ; the 
 verb implicitly or explicitly asserts its existence or non-existence ; and 
 this it may do affirmatively or negatively, positively or hypothetically, 
 by way of question, command, request, desire, or by any of the other 
 indirect modes of implying existence, on which moods of verbs in dif- 
 ferent languages depend. For instance, when the shepherd Claius, in 
 
 indirect. 
 
124 OF VERBS. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, says of Urania " her breath is more sweet 
 than a gentle south-west wind, which comes creeping over flowery 
 fields, and shadowed waters in the extreme heat of summer," the as- 
 sertion contained in the verb is (however figurative or poetical) is 
 direct and positive. But when, a little afterwards, he asks, "hath not 
 the only love of her made us, being silly ignorant shepherds, raise up 
 our thoughts above the ordinary level of the world ?" the question 
 negatively expressed in the words "hath not," indirectly asserts that 
 the love of her has had that effect. So when the other shepherd, 
 Strephon, exclaims, "O Urania! blessed be thou Urania! the fairest 
 sweetness, and sweetest fairness !" There is an implied assertion in 
 the verb " be," that she ought to be .blessed. Again, when the 
 author thus relates the preservation of Musidorus from drowning — "so 
 drew they up a young man of so goodly shape, and well-pleasing 
 favour, that one would think Death had in him a lovely countenance," 
 there is an assertion contained in the verb " had ;" but it is clearly 
 hypothetical, and not positive. Other variations of the mode of asser- 
 tion will be noticed when I come to speak more particularly of the 
 moods of verbs. If it should be objected that to some of these modi-, 
 fications the term "assertion" is, in strictness of speech, inapplicable, 
 I might answer that I contend not for the fitness of the term, but only 
 for the accuracy and importance of the distinction between the noun, 
 which merely names a conception, and the verb, which by affirming, 
 asking, commanding, or otherwise, gives to that conception life and 
 animation, and so forms a sentence enunciative or passionate, 
 objection. 260. It has been objected that assertion cannot be an essential 
 
 property of verbs ; because we can assert without the express use of 
 that part of speech. True, we can do so in certain languages ; for 
 in such a case the assertion is an act of the mind, not expressed, but, 
 as grammarians say, understood. The verb is wanting ; but its place 
 is not supplied by any other part of speech, nor is it to be collected 
 from a change of inflection, or accentuation, or from any other mode 
 of express signification. Thus the verbs " is," " were," and " was," 
 are intentionally omitted, in Milton's beautiful description of our 
 first parents : — 
 
 ■ In their looks divine 
 
 The image of their glorious Maker shone, 
 Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure, 
 Severe but in true filial freedom placed ; 
 Whence true authority in men ; though both 
 Not equal, as their sex not equal seem'd ; 
 For contemplation he, and valour form'd ; 
 For softness she, and sweet attractive grace. 
 
 i. e. whence true authority is in men : both were not equal ; he was 
 form'd for contemplation ; she was form'd for softness, &c. Now, in 
 all these cases, the mind performs the act of asserting ; in the words 
 of Plato, it manifests some action, and declares that something 
 exists ; and this manifestation or declaration is not contained in the 
 
CHAr. IX.] OF VERBS. 125 
 
 nouns themselves, which do nothing more than name the conception ; 
 thus, when we say " nemo bonus," the assertion is neither included 
 in nemo, nor in bonus, for these are mere names of conceptions. Nemo 
 is the subject, bonus is the predicate ; but neither of them includes 
 the copula. The two terms are not connected by anything which 
 either of them contains, but their connection is inferred by the mind 
 from their juxtaposition. But the question to be here considered, 
 does not relate to verbs not expressed, but to verbs expressed ; and 
 universally where the verb is expressed, it imports assertion, either 
 simple or modified, direct or implied. 
 
 261. From this view of its essential properties, the verb may be Definition, 
 defined, a 'part of speech which signifies an attribute of some substance, 
 connects the attribute and substance together, and asserts the existence or 
 non-existence of the connection. To all verbs in all languages this 
 definition is alike applicable ; but there are properties belonging in 
 various modes and degrees to different verbs in different languages ; 
 
 and these, which I have termed accidental properties, I shall con- 
 sider, first in so far as they apply to a whole verb, and then as they 
 apply to its separate parts. 
 
 262. A verb, taken as a whole, may be distinguished from other Verbsnb- 
 
 stantivtj. 
 
 verbs, by certain properties which grammarians have generally con- 
 sidered as marking its hind, either simply, or as modified by some 
 other conception. The first and simplest distinction of kind (as 
 stated by Messieurs de Port Royal) is into substantive and adjective. 
 I have already alluded to the nature of the verb substantive, or verb 
 of existence ; but the following remarks of Hams will place it in a 
 clearer light : — " Previously to every other possible attribute, what- 
 ever a thing may be, whether black or white, square or round, wise 
 or eloquent, writing or thinking, it must first of necessity exist, before 
 it can possibly be anything else ; for existence may be considered as 
 an universal genus, to which all things are at all times to be referred. 
 The verbs, therefore, which denote it, claim precedence of all others, 
 as being essential to the very being of every proposition in which 
 they may still be found either exprest or by implication ; exprest, as 
 when we say ' the sun is bright ;' by implication, as when we say 
 ' the sun rises/ which means when resolved, ' the sun is rising.' 
 Now, all existence is either absolute or qualified. The verb is can 
 by itself express absolute existence, but never the qualified without 
 subjoining the particular form ; because the forms of existence being 
 in number infinite, if the particular form be not exprest, we cannot 
 know which is intended. And hence it follows, that when is only 
 serves to subjoin some such form, it has little more force than that of 
 a mere assertion. 'Tis under the same character that it becomes a 
 latent part in every other verb by expressing that assertion, which is 
 one of their essentials."* So far Harris is right ; but when he men- 
 tions the verbs is, groweth, becometh, est, fit, v-Kap^ei, igl, tteXei, 
 * Hermes, i. 6. 
 
transitive. 
 
 126 OF VERBS. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 yiyverai, as equally verbs substantive, he does not advert to the 
 fact, that several of these words combine in their signification other 
 conceptions than that of mere existence ; for to grow, or to become, 
 usually implies something more than merely to be. Still, if the 
 idiom of a particular language allows it, any verb of this kind may 
 occasionally be employed as a mere verb of existence. 
 Verbs 263. All other verbs are comprehended by Messrs. de Port Royal 
 
 under the designation of verbs adjective, a term which seems reason- 
 able, as contradistinguishing them from the verb substantive. All 
 verbs assert existence ; the verb substantive asserts nothing more ; but 
 the verb adjective includes in one word the assertion and some attri- 
 bute. Now those attributes are either of such a nature that we can 
 be aware of their passing from one substance to another, and the 
 verb expressing them is then said to be transitive ; or we only per- 
 ceive the existence of the attribute, and the verb is then said to be 
 intransitive. This distinction forms what some grammarians call the 
 voice of a verb. As the conception of cause is one of the primary 
 ideas of the human mind, and not a mere inference (as Hume and 
 others absurdly fancied) from an observed similarity in the succession 
 of events ; a verb transitive implies an agent as the cause of transi- 
 tion, and a patient as receiving its effect. Generally the agent and 
 patient are two different beings, and this gives occasion to the active 
 voice, and the passive voice of a verb. Where the agent is first con- 
 sidered, the verb is said to be in the active voice, as " John beats 
 James;" where the patient is first considered, the verb is in the 
 passive voice, as " James is beaten by John." But in some cases 
 the same substance is both agent and patient, which in human beings 
 arises from their double nature. Thus the Heautontimorumenos, of 
 Terence, was a man in whom the attribute of suffering was caused by 
 himself, and reflected back on himself. All languages have some 
 mode, more or less direct or circuitous, of expressing this reflected 
 action : in the Greek language it gave occasion to a form usually 
 called the middle voice.* The Turkish language goes a step further. 
 It expresses in one word an attribute in which the agent and patient 
 are reciprocally cause and effect, as sevmek to love, sevichmek to love 
 mutually.j" How far these distinctions are marked by peculiar forms 
 in different languages will be considered in a future treatise ; but 
 even where such forms exist, it often happens that in practice they 
 are confounded : thus the Greek middle verb is often used with an 
 active signification ; and in Latin there is a large class of verbs called 
 Deponents, having a passive termination, with a sense in general 
 active ; though some of these are also used passively, and therefore 
 called by certain writers common — as adulari, which though in form 
 a passive verb, is generally used actively, but sometimes passively. 
 Thus Cicero says, in an active sense, " neque ita adulatus fortunam 
 
 * Vide Kuster, De vero usu verborum mediorum. 
 ■f Davids, Gram. Turque, p. 34. 
 
CHAP. IX."] OF VERBS. 127 
 
 sum alterius, ut me mese pseniteret.* But elsewhere, in a passive 
 sense, " ne assentatonbus patefaciamus aures, nee adulari nos sina- 
 mus."f 
 
 264. Where the existence of the attribute is alone expressed by Verbs neuter, 
 the verb, without reference to its transition from an agent to a 
 patient, the verb involving such expression of existence and attri- 
 bute, is called intransitive, or (with reference to action and passion) 
 
 neuter ; and it may be either personal, as " he sings," " the tree 
 blossoms," &c. ; or impersonal, as "it rains," "it lightens," it 
 grieves me." Harris, following the authority of Priscian, Sanctius, 
 Vossius, and others, rejects the doctrine of impersonal verbs, on the 
 ground that " every energy respects an energizor or a passive sub- 
 ject.":!: Thus he would explain the instances above given by supply- 
 ing a nominative understood, as " the rain rains," the lightning 
 lightens," " the event grieves me." These forms of speech are to 
 a certain degree idiomatical ; but I would observe, that in the proper 
 impersonate there is usually in the mind of the speaker some doubt 
 at least as to the energizor ; and the fact is meant to be asserted 
 simply, without reference to its cause ; or else the cause is to be 
 otherwise collected from the context. Vossius explains pluit to mean 
 aqua pluvia pluit ; but the Roman peasant, when he saidjoZmY, though 
 he did not perhaps contemplate any distinct cause of the showers, 
 would have been far from disputing the poet's animated description of 
 that cause : — 
 
 Turn Pater Omnipotens, foecundis imbribus, JEther 
 
 Conjugis in gremium lsetae descendit. 
 
 And again, when the same great poet says of the unhappy Dido, — 
 
 Mortem orat, tcedet cceli convexa tueri. 
 No nominative understood (such as res or eventus) can serve to imply 
 the cause of the tedium ; but the context shows that to behold the 
 very sky was the cause of tedium to the forsaken queen. The same 
 confusion which I noticed between the middle and active voice of a 
 verb, often occurs between its transitive or intransitive character ; or, 
 to speak more correctly, the same word is used sometimes as an 
 active verb and sometimes as a neuter. Thus in Greek we may say, 
 Lq yrjy (nrip/jLara ttltttelv^ to fall seed into the earth, i. e. to drop 
 it. So in Latin, auxit rempublicam, actively, or auccit morbus neu- 
 trally. And so in English, " to beat the air," or " the pulse beats ;" 
 but these are matters dependent on the idiom of each particular 
 language. 
 
 265. I have spoken of those distinctions of kind in verbs which are other kinds 
 most simple; but there are others which result from modifying the ofverb3 - 
 signification of a verb by some additional conception. In all languages, 
 
 such modifications may be effected by separate words ; but in some 
 
 * De Divinat., ii. 2. f De Offic, i. 26. 
 
 X Hermes, i. 9. § Plato, Politic, c. 16. 
 
123 OF VERBS. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 languages the same end is attained by the addition of certain par- 
 ticles or letters. The modifications which it may suffice to notice are 
 either of a positive or negative character; to the former are owing 
 verbs desiderative, causative, inceptive, and frequentative ; to the 
 latter, verbs implying either simple negation or impossibility. " There 
 is a species of verbs " (says Harris) " called in Greek etyeriKa, in 
 Latin desiderativa, the desideratives or meditatives; such are TroXeyuTjo-f/w, 
 bellaturio, I have a desire to make war ; fipwaeiio, esurio, I long to 
 eat. So prensare brachium, according to Turnebus, was not " to 
 take by the arm frequently," but " to catch at the arm, to desire to 
 take hold of it," as Horace did when he wished Aristius to rid him of 
 his troublesome companion : — 
 
 vellere caspi, 
 
 Et prensare manu lentissima brachia, nutans, 
 Distorquens oculos, ut me eriperet. 
 
 The Turkish language, which is very rich in modifications of the 
 verb, has a causative form, as aldatmak, to cause to deceive, from 
 aldamak to deceive. In Latin the termination in sco usually marks an 
 inceptive form, as 
 
 Fhjctus uti primo csepit cum albescere vento, 
 
 where dlbesco is to begin to be white, from albeo to be white ; but 
 some of these verbs are rather thought to express continuation, as 
 where Virgil says of Dido, dwelling on the contemplation of the 
 beauty of the fictitious lulus, 
 
 Expleri mentem nequit, ardescitque tuendo. 
 
 The frequentative, or, as some call it, the iterative character, has 
 several forms in Latin, as vendito, adjuto, pulso, facesso; though many 
 of these have rather an augmentative, and some a diminuent force. 
 The simply negative form is common in most languages, as in English, 
 " will he mil he," i.e., " ne mil he;" so in Latin "nolo" i.e., " ne 
 volo." We had also, in Old English, nuste for ne wist, I did not 
 know : — 
 
 In al this wurhliche won, 
 
 A burde of blod and of bon, 
 
 Never yete y nuste non, 
 
 Lussomore in londe. 
 
 M.S. Earl, 2253, a.d. 1200. 
 
 The Turkish language has not only a form of simple negation in its 
 verbs, but also a form of impossibility. In English we have a form 
 expressive of counteraction, as to undo, which, in old Izaak Walton's 
 amusing book on angling, gives occasion to a dispute among the 
 gipsies on the difference between ripping a cloak and unripping it. 
 Many other forms, expressing modifications of the signification of the 
 verb, occur in different languages, and will be noticed in the second 
 part of this treatise. 
 Moods. 266. Having thus enumerated the accidental properties which 
 
CHAP. IX.] OF VEKBS. 129 
 
 belong to a verb considered as a whole, I come to those which affect 
 it as consisting of different parts. These I shall examine as they 
 arise out of the essential properties of the verb ; for from the pro- 
 • perty of assertion is derived the mood, from that of connection the 
 tense, and from that of attribute the person, number, and (where it 
 exists) the gender. First, tlb-aj, as assertion is not only an essential, 
 but the peculiar property of th^ s part of speech, there must be certain 
 portions of every verb showing how assertion may be directly or 
 indirectly expressed. These portions we call, in English, the moods 
 of a verb. Grammarians differ widely as to the number, and no less 
 as to the names of the moods. Scaliger says that mood is not 
 necessary to verbs ; and Sanctius contends that it does not relate to 
 the nature of the verb, and therefore is not an attribute of verbs : non 
 attingit verbi naturam, ideo verborum attributum non est ; on which 
 passage Perizonius very justly observes, that great as the merit of 
 Sanctius was in many parts of his work, yet he had in others, parti- 
 cularly in what regarded the moods of verbs, been misled by an 
 excessive desire of novelty and change. It is very true, as observed > 
 by Sanctius, that the great mass of grammatical writers are so 
 extremely discordant in their opinions respecting this part of the 
 science of which they treat, that they have left us scarcely anything 
 on it which can be said to be established by general consent. Some 
 make only three moods, others four, five, six, and even eight. Again, 
 some call these affections of the verb moods ; others call them divi- 
 sions, qualities, states, species, &c. ; and as to the various appella- 
 tions of each mood, we have the personative and impersonative, the 
 indicative, declarative, definitive, modus finiendi, modus fatendi, the 
 rogative, interrogative, requisitive, percontative, assertive, enunciative, 
 vocative, precative, deprecative, responsive, concessive, permissive, 
 promissive, adhortative, optative, dubitative, imperative, mandative, 
 conjunctive, subjunctive, adjunctive, potential, participial, infinitive, 
 and probably many others. In this confusion of terms and of notions, 
 it is absolutely necessary to adopt some distinct principle which may 
 guide us through the labyrinth ; and that principle, I apprehend, will 
 be easily and intelligibly supplied by adverting to the peculiar function 
 of the verb itself, namely, assertion. 
 
 267. It must be remembered that I use the word assertion in its Four 
 largest sense, to express declaring, affirming, or distinctly manifesting, KioodT^ 
 any perception or volition. In this sense, assertion may be said to 
 take place either in an enunciative or in a, passionate sentence. Thus, 
 in the admirable scene between Brutus and his wife, Portia says — 
 
 Dear, my lord, 
 
 Make me acquainted with your cause of grief. 
 And again, she says — 
 
 Upon my knees 
 
 / charge you, by my once commended beauty, 
 2. K 
 
1 30 OF VERBS. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 By all your vows of love, and that great vow 
 Which did incorporate and make us one, 
 That you unfold to me, yourself, your half, 
 Why you are heavy. 
 
 In both these instances she asserts her earnest demand to be made ac- 
 quainted with the secret cause of th^ e ,ick offence which she perceived 
 to exist, not in her husband's healo, but in his mind. In the one 
 instance the demand is directly and enunciatively expressed by the 
 words " I charge you ;" in the other it is indirectly and passionately 
 expressed by the words " make me acquainted." Again, an enun- 
 ciative assertion may be expressed categorically (that is, positively), 
 or else hypothetically. Thus Caesar, in describing Cassius, first asserts 
 positively, by the word " has," what he 'had observed in his outward 
 appearance, and then hypothetically, by the words " as if," what 
 might be supposed to pass in his mind : — 
 
 Yond Cassius has a lean and hungiy look ; 
 Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort 
 As if he mocKd himself, and scorn'd his spirit, 
 That could be mov'd to smile at any thing. 
 
 And so, referring to Antony's expression, " fear him not," Caesar 
 asserts positively, by the words " fear not," that he does not fear him, 
 but puts a case hypothetically, by the word " if," in which he might 
 do so : — 
 
 I fear him not ; 
 
 Yet if my name were liable to fear, 
 
 I do not know the man I should avoid 
 
 So much, as that spare Cassius. 
 
 In like manner, a passionate assertion may be distinguished according 
 as the object of the passion is within the power or influence of the 
 speaker, or only within his desire or aversion. Thus, in Virgil's 
 fifth Eclogue, Mopsus addresses his brother shepherds in the way of a 
 command, " Spargite humum foliis ;" whereas Menelcas addressing 
 the spirit of Daphnis, in the way of a prayer, says, "Sis bonus, O ! 
 felixque tuis !" These two enunciative and two passionate modes of 
 expressing assertion, here stated, supply us with four principal moods, 
 the indicative, conjunctive, imperative, and optative. It has been sug- 
 gested that these are only a few of the many modifications of signifi- 
 cation which might be called moods of a verb ; that there might be 
 for instance a potential mood expressed by " can," a permissive by 
 " may" a compulsive by " must" and so forth ;* but to this it has been 
 well replied, that " the possibility of providing separate forms for so 
 many moods is, to say the least, doubtful ; and that, if possible, the 
 additional complication introduced by so many minute distinctions 
 into a part of speech already exceedingly complex, would render the 
 import of the verb absolutely unintelligible to nine-tenths even of 
 the learned."*|* Where any such possible moods exist in a particular 
 
 * Dr. Gregory. f Encycl. Brit. 
 
CHAP. IX.J OF VERBS. 131 
 
 language, they must of course be explained in the grammar of that 
 language ; but they do not require notice in this part of the present 
 treatise : I shall therefore proceed to examine the four moods above- 
 mentioned. 
 
 268. " If we simply declare or indicate something to be, or not to indicative, 
 be, whether a perception or volition 'tis equally the same," says 
 Harris ; " this constitutes that mood called the declarative or Indi- 
 cative" Thus, " I love," " you walk," " he died," " we shall rejoice," 
 
 are all simple, or, as logicians say, categorical assertions of fact, some 
 of which do, and some do not, relate to passions of the mind, but 
 which do not necessarily imply any passion in the enunciation. Some 
 of them too may in reality be contingent, or doubtful, and may be 
 dependent on the truth or falsehood of other assertions ; but as they 
 are not so enunciated, but on the contrary are declared positively and 
 simply, they belong to the indicative mood. It is to be observed 
 that the indicative, from its very nature, is capable of being united 
 with the conjunctive, as well as of standing alone. An assertion does 
 not necessarily become the less positive for being coupled with 
 another, although that other may be doubtful or contingent. Thus, 
 when Milton says — 
 
 The conquer'd also, and enslav'd by war, 
 
 Shall, with their freedom lost, all virtue lose, 
 
 it is matter of contingency whether any nation ever will be conquered 
 and enslaved ; but yet the assertion that, supposing a nation to undergo 
 that fate, it will lose all virtue, is properly expressed in the indicative 
 mood by the word " shall." 
 
 269. When a fact is asserted not as actual but merely as possible, Conjunctive, 
 or contingent, the form of words by which such assertion is expressed 
 
 in any particular language, may perhaps be the same as if the asser- 
 tion were more positive ; yet the context will show that the verb is 
 no longer in the indicative mood. The mood adapted to such con- 
 tingent assertion has received various appellations, of which I consider 
 the Conjunctive to be the most appropriate, inasmuch as the contin- 
 gency is usually marked by a conjunction (such as if, though, that, 
 except, until, &c.) which connects the dependent sentence with its 
 principal. There are various methods of thus connecting sentences ; 
 but they may be distinguished into two great classes. In the one class, 
 an uncertain sentence is connected with a certain one ; in the other, 
 both sentences are uncertain : in the former case a conjunctive is 
 dependent on an indicative ; in the latter, both sentences are con- 
 junctive. Some grammarians make this distinction the ground of 
 a distinction of moods, calling the contingent assertion, in the first 
 case, subjunctive, because it is subjoined to the indicative ; and in the 
 other case potential, because it states a potential, and not an actual 
 existence. It seems, however, unadvisable thus to multiply moods ; 
 and if we were to proceed this length, there is no reason why we 
 should not go much further, and call every possible variation of con- 
 
 k2 
 
132 OF VERBS. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 tingency a separate mood. Of these I shall here notice some instances 
 easily distinguishable in point of principle. 
 
 1. Ut jugulent homines surgunt de nocte latrones. 
 
 Herejugulent is in the conjunctive, as indicating the end and object of 
 the rising. 
 
 2. Peter said unto him, though I should die with thee, 
 yet will I not deny thee. 
 
 Here " I should die " is mentioned as a motive to denial, but an insuf- 
 ficient one. 
 
 3. Si fractus illabatur orbis, 
 Impavidum ferient ruinse. 
 
 Here, in like manner, illabatur is in the_ conjunctive, as expressing a 
 fact which might be the cause of fear to ordinary minds, but which is 
 not so to the just and stedfast-minded man ; and the conjunction si in 
 the one case is equivalent to though in the other, both of them having 
 the proper force of our expression " even if." 
 
 4. Except a man be born of water, and of the spirit, 
 he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 
 
 Here the conjunctive be born, is placed in opposition to the indicative 
 " cannot enter ;" so that if the one be in the negative, the other must 
 be so too, and vice versa ; for the implication is, that if a man be born 
 of water and of the spirit, he can enter into the kingdom of God. 
 Accordingly, the Greek conjunctions in this and the preceding example 
 would be directly opposed to each other : in No. 3, the word would 
 be Kav, that is, Kal lav ; but in No. 4 it is lap p/. 
 
 5. Csementis licet occupes 
 
 Tyrrhenum omne tuis et mare Apulicum, 
 
 non animum metu 
 
 Non mortis laqueis expedies caput. 
 
 Here the condition differs from that of No. 2, in being a fact of 
 present time ; and on the other hand the indicative non expedies differs 
 Horn the indicative ferient in No. 3, by being in the negative. 
 
 6. The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a law- 
 giver from between his feet, until Shiloh come. 
 
 Here both the facts are future, but the conditional one is the term or 
 boundary of the other. 
 
 7. tacitus pasci si posset Corvus, haberet 
 
 Plus dapis." 
 
 In all the preceding instances one assertion is absolute ; but here it is 
 neither asserted that the crow can feed in silence, nor that it has more 
 food ; both parts of the sentence, therefore, are contingent, and conse- 
 quently, both are in the conjunctive mood. 
 
 8. If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well 
 It were done quickly. 
 
 Here is also one contingent, namely, 'twere well, depending on another 
 
CHAP. IX. 
 
 OF VERES- 13< 
 
 contingent, if it were done ; and on each we see a further contingency 
 also depends. 
 
 These eight examples are sufficient to show that the varieties of 
 contingent assertions are too various to be considered and treated as 
 so many distinct moods of the verb. The six first are of the kind 
 called, by some writers, subjunctive ; the two last are of the kind 
 called, in contradistinction from the subjunctive, potential ; but as 
 they are all equally conjunctive, it suffices to give them that name : 
 and, indeed, it is a more correct and systematic distribution of the 
 grammatical nomenclature so to do ; for the proper correlative to the 
 term indicative is not subjunctive or potential, but some term which 
 comprehends them both ; as, for instance, the term conjunctive. The 
 indicative asserts simply : the conjunctive asserts with modification : 
 if the one is a mood, so is the other ; but if the conjunctive is a mood, 
 then its subdivisions cannot be properly so called ; but they should 
 rather be called sub-moods, if it were necessary to give them any pecu- 
 liar denomination. 
 
 270. The effect of any degree of passion is pro tanto to interrupt i m ? er 
 and modify the processes of reasoning. Reasoning is conducted by 
 direct assertion, absolute or conditional. Passion goes at once to its 
 object, assuming it as the consequence of an indirect assertion. Thus, 
 if the fact be that I desire that a person should go to any place, it is 
 not necessary for me to state my desire in the indicative mood, and 
 his going in the infinitive or conjunctive, " I desire you to go," or 
 "I desire that you should go;" but by the natural impulse of my 
 feelings — feelings which language conveys as clearly as it does the 
 more gradual processes of thought — I say, in a mood different from 
 either the indicative, infinitive, or conjunctive — Go I Now, this mood, 
 from its frequent use in giving commands to inferiors, has been called 
 the Imperative, and that name, as being the most general, I shall 
 adopt. Some writers have distinguished from the imperative, the 
 piecative, the deprecative, the permissive, the adhortative, &c. ; but, 
 so far as language is concerned, these are but different applications of 
 the same mood : the operation is the same in communicating the 
 object of the passion, and implying the assertion that such passion 
 exists. A few examples may serve to explain my meaning : — 
 
 1. Let there be light, said God; and forthwith light 
 Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure, 
 Sprung from the deep, and from her native east 
 To journey through the air)' gloom began. Milton 
 
 2. Fear and piety, 
 
 Religion to the gods, peace, justice, truth, 
 
 Domestic awe, night-rest, and neighbourhood, 
 
 Instruction, manners, mysteries, and trades, 
 
 Degrees, observances, customs, and laws, 
 
 Decline to your confounding contraries ! 
 
 And let confusion live ! Shakspeare 
 
134 OF VERBS. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 3. Help me, Lysander, help me ! Do thy hest 
 To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast ! 
 
 Ah me, for pity ! — what a dream was here ? Shakspeare. 
 
 4. Go, hut be mod'rate in your food ! 
 
 A chicken too might do me good. Gay. 
 
 In the first of these examples we have an instance of the highest 
 imperative, that which proceeds from the Almighty power, to whose 
 command all things created and uncreated are subject ; and who, in 
 Milton's fine paraphrase of the first chapter of Genesis, is described 
 as calling into existence the hitherto uncreated essence of light. The 
 second example is deprecative, or rather imprecative, in which Timon 
 calls down on his worthless fellow-citizens the natural consequences 
 of their profligacy. The third is precative, in which poor deserted 
 Hermia, waking from a terrific dream, calls for help from her faithless 
 lover Lysander. The last is permissive, in which the old dying fox, 
 after a long harangue to dissuade the younger members of his com- 
 munity from pursuing their usual trade of rapine, at length permits 
 them to go out on a similar excursion. In all these varieties of the 
 imperative mood, the grammatical process, both of thought and 
 expression, is the same. In all of them the assertion of desire or 
 aversion on the part of the speaker is clearly implied. The sense is, 
 " I command that there be light" — " I wish that confusion may pre- 
 vail" — " I pray you to help me" — " I permit you to go;" but it is 
 unnecessary to express those various assertions, because they are all 
 implied in the imperative moods, and without those moods they could 
 not be so implied. The imperative animates the passionate sentence, 
 as the indicative or conjunctive animates the enunciative sentence. It 
 converts the name of an object of passion, or will, into a manifestation 
 that such object exists ; just as the indicative or conjunctive converts 
 the name of an object of perception or thought into an assertion that 
 it is really existing. The original text, " God said let there be light, 
 and there was light," affords a plain example of this operation in both 
 ways. The conceptions in both are two ; namely, existence and light. 
 Each of these, without the verb, would remain a mere noun. The 
 word " light" does so remain; but " existence," by becoming a verb, 
 exhibits itself first in the imperative as an object of volition, and then 
 in the indicative as an object of perception. In the one case it implies 
 an assertion of the Divine will that light should exist; in the other it 
 expresses an assertion that light did exist. The authors of the " Port 
 Royal Grammar" observe, that as the future tense is often taken for 
 an imperative mood (which will be presently noticed), so the im- 
 perative is frequently used for a future ; and this they ascribe to an 
 imitation of the Hebrews. But in truth there must in all languages 
 be a community of signification between these two portions of a verb ; 
 because, as Apollonius remarks, " we can command only in regard to 
 the time to come." " Steal not," and " thou shall not steal," have 
 therefore the same signification. 
 
CHAP. IX. J OF VERBS. 135 
 
 271. The Optative mood seems at first sight to imply only a minor optative, 
 degree of the same passion, which is more energetically expressed by 
 the imperative: and hence I was formerly inclined to agree with 
 those grammarians who think it unnecessary to make the former a 
 separate mood. But the Greek and some other languages distinguish 
 it by a peculiar form ; and on reflection it appears to me, for the 
 reasons above stated, that the distinction is well grounded. I cannot, 
 indeed, adopt the language of Scaliger (lib. iv., c. 144), differunt, 
 quod imperatives respicit personam inferiorem, optativus potentiorem: 
 " they differ in this, that the imperative regards an inferior person, 
 the optative a superior ;" for that difference is altogether accidental. 
 Moreover, it makes no provision for the common case of wishes 
 expressed between equals; and again, how are we to determine 
 whether a request is addressed to a person in one character rather 
 than another ? Or why should we not have moods to designate the 
 different degrees of superiority and inferiority? The fact seems to 
 be, that the more distant and indirect influence of the will on its 
 object, has given rise, in some languages, to a peculiar form of the 
 verb, generally called the optative mood. Yet even this distinction 
 does not appear to be very accurately observed in practice, for we 
 sometimes see the optative used, where the imperative might have 
 been more naturally expected. Thus, in the Electra of Sophocles, 
 when Orestes is forcing JEgisthus into the palace, to kill him in 
 the apartment where he had murdered Agamemnon, he says to his 
 reluctant victim : — 
 
 X&»£o/j oiv zltrw ffvv to-x, 11 ' ^-°y MV yttg a 
 
 Go in, without delay, for now the strife 
 Is not for useless words, but for thy life : 
 
 where the optative yupoiq undoubtedly expresses a strong volition 
 that iEgisthus should do what he was unwilling to perform. The 
 common distinction between the optative and the imperative is nearly 
 expressed by the English use of the auxiliaries "may" and "let." 
 Thus, the following passage in the hymn to Sabrina is an example of 
 the optative, expressed by may : — 
 
 Virgin daughter of Locrine, 
 Sprung of old Anchises' line, 
 May thy brimmed waves, for this, 
 Their full tribute never miss, 
 From a thousand petty rills 
 That tumble down the snowy hills ! 
 Summer drouth, or singed air, 
 Never scorch thy tresses fair ! 
 Nor wet October's torrent flood 
 Thy molten crystal fill with mud ! 
 May thy billows roll ashore 
 The beryl, and the golden ore ! 
 May thy lofty head be crown'd 
 With many a tow'r and terras round V 
 
136 OF VERBS. [CHAP. IX* 
 
 The tribute from the rills, the beryls rolled ashore, and the crown 
 of towers and terraces were matters not within the power or control 
 of the speaker, and which he, therefore, could only wish for. On the 
 contrary, when the speaker can command the execution of his wishes, 
 he uses the word let, as the king, in Hamlet : — 
 
 Let all the battlements their ord'nance fire. 
 
 Give me the cups, 
 
 And let the kettle to the trumpet speak, 
 
 The trumpet to the cannoneer without, 
 
 The cannon to the heavens. 
 
 It is observed by Vossius, that the Latin optative is no other than 
 the conjunctive— and, indeed, the form is the same in both; for we 
 say, utinam amem, or cum amem ; utinam amarem, or cum amarem ; 
 utinam amaverim, or cum amaverim ; utinam amavissem, or cum ama- 
 vissem. And so, in the passive voice, utinam amarer, or cum amarer ; 
 utinam amer, or cum amer ; utinam amatus sim, or cum amatus sim, 
 &c. The mood, however, is not to be determined by the form, but 
 by the signification ; for it often happens that particular languages do 
 not possess distinct forms for the different moods ; and where they 
 do, the form of one mood is frequently used with the force of another. 
 This even takes place in the Greek language, which possesses the 
 richest abundance of inflections in its verbs. The Greek indicative is 
 often used for the subjunctive and optative, and that through almost 
 all its tenses, as Viger has shown at large in his celebrated treatise 
 on Greek idioms : and in return, the optative, especially in the Attic 
 dialect, is used for the indicative, 
 interro 272. Besides the four moods which I have reckoned as principal, 
 
 some grammarians hold that there are two others of equal importance, 
 namely, the Interrogative and the Infinitive ; these therefore I shall 
 proceed to examine. And first, as to the interrogative : Varro speaks 
 of the mode of interrogating as different from that of answering. No 
 doubt the state of the mind in these two acts is widely different ; but 
 as both acts must, of course, relate to the same conception, and to 
 the same direct assertion, categorical or hypothetical, it is not sur- 
 prising that the grammatical forms expressive of those acts should 
 nearly approach each other, or be sometimes the very same ; and 
 hence that some grammarians should deny the necessity of an inter- 
 rogative mood. " In written language" (says an able writer), " take 
 away the mark of interrogation, and in spoken language the peculiar 
 tone of voice, and the interrogative and indicative modes appear pre- 
 cisely the same." * Of this there is a remarkable instance in the 
 speech of Venus, in the 10th book of the iEneid : — 
 Cernis, ut insultent Rutuli, Turnusque feratur 
 Per medios insignis equis, tumidusque secundo 
 Marte ruat,j- 
 
 where, if read without the accent of interrogation, the word " cernis" 
 * Encycl. Brit., art. Grammar. f Virg. ^En., 10, 20. 
 
 gative. 
 
CHAP. IX.J OF VERBS. 137 
 
 is in the indicative mood, " you see ;" but if read (as it certainly 
 ought to be) with that accent, it is clearly in the interrogative, and 
 should be translated " do you not see ?" In like manner, the beauty 
 of the following lines of Catullus would be lost, if read without the 
 interrogative accentuation, though the form is simply indicative : — 
 
 Jam te nil miseret, dure, tui dulcis amiculi ? 
 
 Jam me prodere ; jam non dubitas fallere perfide ?* 
 
 Of a question put hi the form of an assertion (says the same learned 
 person) we have a remarkable instance in the Gospel of St. Mat- 
 thew. When Christ stood before Pilate, the governor asked him, 
 saying, " 2u ei 6 ficKTiktvg tu)v Iaoaiwv." -\ Now this is literally 
 " Thou art the king of the Jews ;" but pronounced in an interrogative 
 tone, it must have signified, " Art thou the king of the Jews ?" And 
 so it seems to have been understood. Indeed, in colloquial English, 
 nothing is more common than to use the indicative form interroga- 
 tively, and with the interrogative intonation, as " you took a ride this 
 morning?" meaning " did you [or rather did you not] take a ride?" 
 On these grounds the writer alluded to concludes, that " the [so 
 called] interrogative mood is a useless distinction," and one which 
 (he says) is " not found in any language." I confess that at one 
 time these reasons appeared to me to have much weight ; but when 
 I reflect that the mental energy exercised by an interrogator is alto- 
 gether different from that exercised by a respondent or a narrator ; 
 and that it is marked in all languages either by a change of the 
 arrangement or accentuation of the words, or by some additional 
 word or particle, or perhaps even by a peculiar inflection, I cannot but 
 agree with those who add an interrogative mood to the four above- 
 mentioned. 
 
 273. This mood may be said to partake both of the enunciative its mixed 
 and of the passionate character. On the one hand, it requires from nature - 
 the party interrogated a direct assertion, affirmative or negative, either 
 of the existence of some fact, the precise nature of which is pre- 
 sumably unknown to the interrogator, or else of some unknown 
 circumstance of person, place, time, or the like, relating to the fact in 
 question ; and, on the other hand, it implies in the interrogator the 
 indirect assertion of some sort of passion, varying from the simple desire 
 of information, the height of pleasure, or to that tumult of painful 
 feelings, which renders thought itself a chaos of doubt and confusion. 
 
 Thus, Ismene, ignorant of the nature of the act, in which Antigone 
 wishes her to take part, asks — 
 
 What is the act ? What danger ? What intent ? % 
 So Creon, ignorant of the person who had buried Polynices, asks — 
 Who was the man, that dared to do this deed ?§ 
 
 * Catull. 30. f Encycl. Brit., ut sup. 
 
 J lloiov ; n Hiv^uvtu/y-a ; <rov yvcoftn; tot u. Soph. Antig., 42. 
 § t/j ocvhfuv 'hv, o ToX//.r,<ra,s Tao~z. Ibid., 248. 
 
138 OF VERBS. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 So JEneas, ignorant of the place whence the ghost of Hector came 
 ! Hector, from vjhat coast, 
 
 Long-wished for, dost thou come ?* 
 So Lady Macbeth, when her husband says to her, " Duncan comes 
 here to night," significantly asks, as if ignorant of the intended time of 
 his departure — 
 
 ■■ And when goes hence ?f 
 
 In all these instances, there is expressed on the part of the interro- 
 gator a simple desire of information ; and the verb, though interrogative 
 in effect, is in form indicative. But when Catullus would express 
 perfect delight, he does it in the form of a question — 
 
 What is more joyful or more happy than I ?J 
 And again — 
 
 ! what is happier than to live free from cares ?§ 
 On the other hand, so painful were the feelings of the unhappy 
 queen of Carthage, when abandoned by her lover, that she scarcely 
 knew what she said, or where she was, or what was the state of her 
 own mind. Yet all this she expresses interrogatively, though the 
 verbs retain the indicative form — 
 
 What do I say ? Where am I ? And what rage 
 
 Transforms my mind ? || 
 
 complex " d ^4. The ancients (as Harris observes) distinguished two kinds of 
 interrogations, the simple, called 'Epwrr/jua, interrogatio, and the com- 
 plex, called ILvo-fia, percontatio.% The simple present a question, 
 the answer to which may be given in the same words by converting 
 them into a sentence affirmative or negative : ex. gr. Qu. " Are these 
 verses of Homer ?" Answer. " These are verses of Homer," or " These 
 are not verses of Homer," or, still more shortly, by the adverbs Yes 
 or No. The complex interrogations are either definitely or indefinitely 
 such. A definitely complex interrogation, such as, " Is this a verse of 
 Horace or of Virgil ?" or, " Is this a verse of Horace, of Virgil, or of 
 Ovid ?" admits of two possible answers to each separate interrogation 
 which it involves, and also of one general negative ; as, " It is 
 Horace's " — " It is not Horace's " (and so of Virgil and Ovid) ; or, 
 "It is of neither." The indefinite may be answered by a whole sen- 
 tence, or elliptically by a single essential word in such sentence : 
 ex. gr. — " How many right angles equal the angles of a triangle ?" 
 Answer. " Two right angles equal the angles of a triangle." But as 
 this repetition of the eight last words of the question would be tedious, 
 
 * Quibus, Hector, ab oris 
 
 Exspectate venis ? Virg. Mn., 2, 282. 
 
 + Shaksp. Macbeth. 
 
 I Quid me laetius est, beatiusve ? CatulL, 9. 
 § ! quid solutis est beatius curis ? CatulL, 31. 
 |! Quid loquor ? Aut ubi sum? Quae mentem insania mutat? 
 ^f Hermes, b. i., c. 8. 
 
CHAP. IX.] OF VERBS. 139 
 
 the question may be elliptically answered by the essential word 
 " Two," corresponding to the interrogative " How many?" 
 
 275. Of the so-called Infinitive Mood, the following is the account g} fin ii tive 
 given by Harris : — " Through all the above modes (indicative, &c.) 
 
 the verb, being considered as denoting an attribute, has always 
 reference to some person or substance."* " But there is a mode or 
 form, under which verbs sometimes appear, where they have no 
 reference at all to persons or substances. For example, ' to eat is 
 pleasant, but to fast is wholesome.' Here the verbs to eat and to fast 
 stand alone by themselves, nor is it requisite, or even practicable, to 
 prefix a person or substance. Hence the Latin and modern gramma- 
 rians have called verbs under this mode, from this their indefinite 
 nature, infinitives .""j" " These infinitives go farther : they not only lay 
 aside the character of attributives, but they assume that of substan- 
 tives. "J So far Harris. Now, as he had before said that " those 
 attributives which have the complex power of denoting both an attri- 
 bute and an assertion make that species of words which grammarians 
 call verbs ;"§ and as he here denies that the infinitives retain the 
 character of attributives, and nowhere pretends that they have the 
 power of denoting an assertion, it would seem strange that he should 
 still consider them as verbs, were it not that this inconsistency has 
 been shared, as Vossius observed, not only by the semidoctum valgus, 
 but even by some of the scientissimi. For my own part, far from 
 ranking the infinitive among the moods of a verb, I agree entirely, 
 for reasons which will presently appear, with those who call it a 
 verbal noun substantive. 
 
 276. Whether we call infinitives nouns or verbs, the propriety of win so 
 the name infinitive is very evident from the observation of Vossius : °* e 
 Utfinitum est nomen,tum philosophus, turn plurativus philosophi ; quippe 
 
 iUo anus, hoc multi significantar : at contra infinitum est sui, quia utri- 
 usque est numeri, item Grcecum deiva, quo et Me et Mi denotatur ; sic 
 finitum verbum est audio, ac facio, ut quo certus numerus designatur ; 
 infinita autem sunt audire, agere, ut quo? deficiant nvmeris ac personis, 
 et undique sunt indefinita ac indeterminatur. " As the noun philoso- 
 phus is finite, both in the singular and in the plural philosophi, since 
 the former signifies one person, and the other many ; but on the other 
 hand the word sui is infinitive, because it is both singular and plural ; 
 and in like manner the Greek word htva is infinitive, because it 
 denotes both him and them; so the verbs audio and facio are finite, 
 as designating a certain number ; but audire and agere, which express 
 no certain number or person, and are in every way indefinite and 
 indeterminate, are called infinitives." 
 
 277. That the class of words in question, however, are not verbs is a noun 
 but nouns substantive, results from the following considerations : — 
 
 1. There are, as I have often repeated, only two principal modes 
 * Hermes, b. 1, c. S. f Ibid. % Ibid - § IWd. 
 
140 OF VERBS. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 of enunciating thought by speech, that is to say, naming 
 our conceptions, and asserting, or manifesting their exist- 
 ence. Now the infinitives, " to love," aimer, amare, " to 
 have loved," avoir aime, amavisse, assert nothing by them 
 selves, either as to the conception of love, or as to the 
 conception of time in which the action of loving took place . 
 they express both only in the way of notation, or naming, 
 and not in the way of declaration ; and therefore, in so far 
 as either conception is concerned, the infinitive must remain 
 in the class of nouns. 
 
 2. Harris admits that if you take away the assertion from any 
 
 mood of a verb, " there remains nothing more than the 
 mere infinitive, which, as Priscian says, significat ipsam rem 
 quam continet verbum."* And by the word remit is clear 
 that nothing can be here meant but the noun involved in 
 the verb. 
 
 3. That this noun must be a substantive is manifest, smce it may 
 
 be the subject of a proposition, of which the predicate is 
 one of its attributes. Thus Cicero says, " Cum vivere ipsum 
 turpe sit nobis,"t which might equally be rendered in 
 English " to live is disgraceful to me," or, " life is dis- 
 graceful to me." 
 
 4. The infinitives (according to the idiom of most cultivated lan- 
 
 guages) answer to the distinctions of case in other nouns 
 substantive. Thus tempus dbire answers to the genitive, 
 "time of departure ;" celer irasci, to the dative, " swift 
 to anger ;" and dignus amari, to the ablative, dignus amore. 
 
 5. Hence the latter of two verbs, which, when not connected 
 
 with the preceding by a conjunction, must, according to 
 the trite rule, be in the infinitive mood, is in effect the 
 accusative case of a noun governed by the first verb : ex. gr. : 
 
 God will not long defer 
 
 To vindicate the glory of his name :$ 
 
 where " defer to vindicate " is equivalent to " defer the 
 vindication." 
 
 is verba!. 278. These nouns, however, though not verbs, are properly desig- 
 
 nated as verbal ; for though they do not possess the peculiar charac- 
 teristic of verbs, namely assertion, they possess several of the proper- 
 ties of verbs. They can express existence, action, passion, and 
 consequently time. Esse expresses existence ; amare, action ; amari, 
 passion ; and, again, amare expresses time indefinite or present ; 
 amavisse, time past, fore, time future. " Scripsit Caesar nondum te 
 sibi satis esse familiarem, sed certe foreP% Moreover, like verbs, 
 they may govern nouns, with or without a preposition ; as " to excel 
 
 * Hermes, b. i. c. 8. f Cicero, Attic, 13, 28. 
 
 \ Milton, Sams. Agon., 474. § Cicero, Ep. Fam. 
 
CHAP. IX.] OF VERBS. 141 
 
 in wisdom" " to acquire fame :" and like verbs they admit of modifi- 
 cation by adverbs, as " to live well" " to die gloriously." As some 
 of these incidents depend on the construction of different languages, 
 they will be noticed more particularly hereafter ; but it may here be 
 proper to observe that there are various classes of nouns, both sub- 
 stantive and adjective, which are connected with verbs, that is to say, 
 which express, with certain modifications, the same conception which 
 is expressed as an attribute by the verb. These nouns may be thus 
 classed: — 
 
 1. Verbal adjectives (commonly so called), which express the 
 
 conception in the form of an attribute, as the Latin verbals 
 in bilis, &c, of which Mr. Tooke makes a class of participles, 
 and which do not involve the notion of time. 
 
 2. Participles (commonly so called), which agree with the former, 
 
 except that they involve the notion of time, 
 
 3. Abstract nouns (commonly so called), which express the con- 
 
 ception in the form of a substantive, as the Latin nouns in 
 io, &c, which do not involve the notion of time. 
 
 4. Infinitives (commonly called infinitive moods), which agree 
 
 with the former, except that they may involve the notion of 
 time. 
 
 It happens, indeed, in most languages, that distinct forms are 
 wanting for some of these four classes of nouns, or that the forms are 
 reciprocally used for each other. Thus, " he learns to sing" or "he 
 learns singing" are used in English indifferently; and so " he learns 
 singing," and " he is singing," are equally consistent with our idiom. 
 
 279. I have thought it necessary to dwell the longer on the consi- Different 
 
 , . ~ , . n P. , J . !-.. . & ! r , opinions. 
 
 deration of the infinitive, because, m excluding it not only from the 
 moods but from the verbs, I certainly deviate, more than I am gene- 
 rally disposed to do, from the path pursued by the great majority of 
 grammatical writers. Yet this deviation is justified by high authority ; 
 for many of the ancients (and those, as Harris says, " the best gram- 
 marians") have called the infinitive oro/na prifiariKov, or ovojia 
 pjlfxarog : and with these agrees Priscian, in the following passage, 
 " a constructions quoque vim rei verborum, id est, nominis, quod 
 significat ipsam rem, habere infinitivum possumus dignoscere." " From 
 the construction, too, we may perceive, that the infinitive has the 
 force of the thing, of the verb, that is to say of the noun, which signi- 
 fies the thing itself." What is here called the thing, of the verb, is 
 what I have called the conception of an attribute, the mere name of 
 which is a noun. Thus, "I die" expresses the conception of dying, 
 but it not only names that conception, it asserts the thing to exist, 
 with reference to a certain person ; whereas " to die " expresses the 
 conception, that is to say, names the thing, and does nothing more : 
 it does not manifest the existence of the thing as an object either of 
 perception or volition ; it does not assert that any person is dying, or 
 
142 OF VERBS. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 has died, or will die, or may die ; neither does it evince any desire 
 that such an event should occur, or the contrary, either positively or 
 conditionally. " Take away the assertion, the command, or what- 
 ever else gives a character to any one of the other modes," says 
 Harris, " and there remains nothing more than the infinitive." So, 
 I say, take away from the other modes whatever gives them the 
 verbal character, and there remains the noun. Whether we call this 
 noun a verbal noun, or a participial noun, or simply an infinitive, is 
 immaterial ; provided we clearly understand, that it belongs not to 
 the class of verbs, but to that of nouns, and that its nature does not 
 depend on its form ; since, in English, the words death, to die, and 
 dying, may all be used as infinitives ; and, when so used, are gene- 
 rally convertible into each other, with little or no change of meaning. 
 Tense. 280. As I consider moods to arise out of the most essential pro- 
 
 perty of the verb, namely assertion, so I consider Tenses to arise out 
 of the next essential property of the verb, namely connection. The 
 English word tense is merely a corrupt pronunciation of the old 
 French temps, as that was of the Latin tempus, time. Now, if a 
 word be meant expressly to assert the connection of a substance with 
 its attribute, or of a species with its genus, that word must implicitly 
 assert the existence of the things connected. In order, therefore, to 
 understand the connection, we must begin, as Harris judiciously does, 
 by considering existence according as it is mutable or immutable. 
 I am well aware that certain self-styled philosophers hold that there 
 is no such thing as immutable existence. They conceive that men's 
 minds are made up, as their bodies are, of a sort of small dust, 
 which is perpetually whirling about, and taking various forms and 
 arrangements, some of which it may please a man to call true, and 
 others false ; that this distinction, however, is a mere delusion of the 
 individual's mind, mentis gratissimus error ; that when the man dies, 
 his notions, their truth and their falsehood, their wisdom and their 
 folly, all die with him ; and though some truths wear better than 
 others, and keep in fashion for twenty or thirty centuries, while the 
 greater part of our notions do not last longer than the small ephemeral 
 insects of the Nile, yet that in the end they all sink into one common 
 Lethe : — 
 
 animas quibus altera fato 
 
 Corpora debentur. 
 
 The opposite philosophy to this, although stigmatized as " a meta- 
 physical jargon and a false morality, which can only be dissipated by 
 etymology," I feel myself constrained to adopt, from the utter repug- 
 nance of the former to my faculty of reason. I cannot conceive that 
 the objects of intellection and science are mutable in any possible 
 number of years, or in any imaginable conjuncture of circumstances. 
 I cannot, for instance, believe that in a square the diagonal ever was, 
 or will be, or can be, commensurable with one of the sides. These 
 two magnitudes are not incommensurable because Euclid happened to 
 
CHAP. IX.] OF VERBS. 143 
 
 think so, or because his doctrine on the subject has prevailed for 
 above two thousand years. Their incommensurability is a truth as 
 independent of that lapse of time, as any two things can possibly be 
 of each other. The opposite to it cannot be conceived by the human 
 mind. The existence of this truth, therefore, is justly styled im- 
 mutable. 
 
 281. Of such immutable existence the Present tense is usually Preset- 
 considered the proper exponent, because, in most languages, it is 
 among the simplest forms of the verb, and in particular has no dis- 
 tinct mark of time about it. There is no reason, a priori, that there 
 should not be a separate inflection of the verb to distinguish per- 
 petual, absolute, immutable existence, from that which is predicated 
 with reference to some certain time ; but as no language, that I know 
 of, has adopted any such form, and as absolute existence is naturally 
 contemplated under the form of a time perpetually present, I regard 
 the expression of immutable existence as one of the uses of the present 
 tense. 
 
 The other use of the present tense depends on the nature of 
 mutable existence. Now, mutable objects exist in time. When, 
 therefore, we declare them to exist, that is, whenever we employ a 
 verb active, or passive, or neuter, we must declare them to exist in 
 some time. But time is distinguishable as to its periods into present, 
 past, and future ; and as to its continuity into perfect or imperfect : 
 and though the present, from its nature, must be definite and positive, 
 yet the other two periods may be stated indefinitely and with relation 
 to some different time. From these sources, and from the differences 
 of mood already noticed, may be derived all the tenses, which appear 
 in use, in different languages. And first, as to the present, considered 
 as marking a certain portion of time ; it is manifest that we may 
 consider as present to us a greater or less portion of time. Time flows 
 on continuously, and has in itself no stops or periods ; but the mind 
 dwells on certain portions, and gives them a distinct expression in 
 language. The names of these portions are various, as an age, a year, 
 a day, an hour, a moment ; but it has been well shown by Mr. Harris 
 that the present time, strictly speaking, is not cognizable by any 
 human faculty ; for it is 
 
 Like the lightning, which doth cease to be, 
 
 BC- 
 
 Ere one can say it lightens. 
 
 Let us suppose," says he, " for example, the lines AB- 
 
144 OF VERBS. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 " I say, that the point B, is the end of the line AB, and the beginning 
 of the line BC. In the same manner let us suppose AB BC to repre- 
 sent certain times, and let B be a now, or instant, which they include ; 
 the first of them is necessarily past time, as being previous to it ; the 
 other is necessarily future, as being subsequent." Hence he con- 
 cludes, that time present has at best but a shadowy and imaginative 
 existence ; and, of course, as sensation refers only to time present, 
 that sensible existence is itself altogether imperceptible, eluding the 
 steady grasp of thought, and approaching to absolute nonentity. This 
 will, doubtless, appear strange to the modern philosophers, who hold 
 that sensible existence is the only existence ; but let them meditate 
 on what they mean by the words now, or instant, or moment ; let them 
 consider how difficult it is to arrest the fleeting progress of time, and 
 fasten it down to the periods indicated by those terms ; and they will, 
 perhaps, perceive that their notions are not quite so clear as they 
 have hitherto fondly imagined. 
 
 We will assume, that in the above diagram the perfect present is 
 correctly indicated by the point B. At that moment, I open my eyes 
 and I contemplate, at one view, a large theatre crowded with nume- 
 rous happy faces, with splendour and beauty, with the diversities of 
 age, and sex, and condition, with mirth and gravity, and all the pas- 
 sions, which, though not meant to be brought into public, could not 
 entirely be thrown off and left at home, like an unvalued garment. 
 Or, perchance, I am on a proud hill-top, from whence, at one glimpse, 
 I behold mountains and valleys spread in rich perspective before me, 
 with the near cottages, and the distant town, and, beyond all, the 
 remote and hazy ocean. I see the variegated foliage, and the ripening 
 corn, the clouds of heaven sailing high in air, the rustics at their 
 labour, and the little vagrant boy picking daisies at my feet, and 
 delighting in his idleness. Without any time for reflection, without 
 a thought of the successive action of the machinery in this grand 
 landscape, I say, u I see" all this, at the present moment, and I 
 enunciate it in the present tense perfect. 
 
 But if I wish to express a continuous action, if, for instance, I mean 
 to describe myself as remaining for some time in contemplation of the 
 scenes just described, I am compelled to change my expression, and 
 to adopt the present tense imperfect. In that case, I say " I am 
 contemplating," " I am beholding :" and the diagram before drawn 
 will not then so well express the time intended to be described as the 
 following one : — 
 
CHAP. IX.] OF VERBS. 145 
 
 Here, the present time, designated by the letter B, extends indefinitely 
 toward A and C, embracing a segment, the whole of which is viewed 
 by the mind as being at once present to its contemplation, though 
 without any definite boundary on either side. The English language 
 easily distinguishes this sort of present tense from the other, by the 
 use of the verb to be and the participle present ; but in most other 
 languages the present perfect and the present imperfect have one and 
 the same form, and can only be distinguished by the context. 
 
 282. We have seen that the present imperfect implies something of Vast. 
 the past, and something of the future. Modern philosophy is very well 
 satisfied to pass over all the difficulties which occur in regard to the 
 nature of time. We are told, " that we have our notion of succes- 
 sion and duration from this original, viz., from reflection on the train 
 of ideas which we find to appear one after another in our own minds," 
 and that " time is duration set out by measures." This is surely 
 anything but reasoning. First, it is assumed that there is a train of 
 ideas which constantly succeed each other in every man's understand- 
 ing. Each of these ideas, then, must either occupy an indivisible point 
 of time, or it must have some distinguishable duration. In the former 
 case I cannot at all understand how reflection on many indivisible 
 points should afford me the notion of any continuous quantity. In 
 the latter case there would be no occasion to reflect on a train ; for 
 the reflection on a single idea would present to me the notion of 
 duration in itself. But what are these ideas ; and how do they march 
 in train ? Are they all of equal duration ? If so, or if not, what is 
 it that determines the duration of each ? Is it not the voluntary act 
 of the mind ? — Again : is there no interval in the train ? On the 
 hypothesis above stated, it would seem that before a man could have 
 any notion of duration, and consequently of time, he must have formed 
 in his own mind thoughts of a certain duration ; these thoughts must 
 have succeeded each other in a distinguishable order, he must have 
 been fully aware of that succession, and he must afterwards have 
 made it the subject of reflection. But this statement is absurd ; for 
 on what is he to reflect ? On a succession which would not present 
 any notion of duration unless it involved that notion in the first 
 instance ; nor would the succession of any two or more ideas produce 
 a notion of duration if the thoughts themselves, or the interval 
 between them, did not involve it. The truth is, that the idea of 
 duration, or time, is not to be made up out of any other elements, 
 but is an original law, and first element of thought in the human 
 mind. We perceive duration of time just as we perceive extension 
 of space, because it is one of the necessary forms under which alone 
 we can contemplate existence. Whilst we are contemplating the 
 indivisible moment which constitutes the perfect present it has already 
 melted into the imperfect present; and if we attempt to seize it 
 again, it has already become the past : its distinction is then fully 
 2. l 
 
146 OF VERBS. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 marked ; for the past is presented to us by memory, as the present is 
 by sensation. 
 
 The past has its perfect and its imperfect, its definite and its inde- 
 finite, its positive and its relative. We may speak of an action which 
 was performed on a given day, at a given hour, and a given minute ; 
 as of Caesar's leaping into the Rubicon, or of the first shot which 
 was fired at the commencement of the thirty years' war : or we may 
 speak of an action in which a person was occupied, and which was 
 going on at the time to which we refer. Thus the ancient artists 
 inscribed their works with the word faciebat, to indicate that they did 
 not put them out of hand, as finished and perfect, but that they had 
 been for some time engaged in making them, and would have carried 
 further their attempts toward perfection, had time and circumstances 
 permitted. Thus, too, Syrus, in the Heautontimorumenos, describing 
 the work on which he found Antiphila and her servants employed, 
 says — 
 
 Texentem telam studiose ipsam offendimus : 
 
 Anus 
 
 Subtemen nebat : prseterea una ancillula 
 
 Erat : ea texebat una\ 
 
 Again, we may speak of the past time definitely, fixing the epoch 
 when it happened, as — 
 
 That day he overcame the Nervii. 
 Or indefinitely, declaring that the act of which we are speaking is past, 
 but not ascertaining whether the time of its performance was near or 
 distant; as — 
 
 Thou art the ruins of the noblest man 
 
 That ever lived in the tide of times. 
 
 Lastly, the past time may be mentioned simply as past at the present 
 moment, or as past at some time preceding the present; and these 
 two tenses may be reciprocally distinguished as positive and relative. 
 Thus, in the positive, Macbeth says — 
 
 I have liv'd long enough : my way of life 
 
 Is fallen into the sere, the yellow leaf. 
 
 In the relative, Thyrsis (the attendant spirit), in the Masque of 
 Comus, says — 
 
 This ev'ning late, by then the chewing flocks 
 Had ta'en their supper on the sav'ry herb 
 Of knot-grass dew-besprent, and were in fold, 
 1 sate me down to watch. 
 
 Future. 283. As the past time exists in memory, so the Future exists in 
 
 imagination. Such is the nature of man, or he would be unable to 
 attain " that large discourse, looking before and after" which the poet 
 truly assigns to him. The conception of duration may be supposed 
 to exist in a being which had only the perception of the present and 
 the past ; but to render that conception operative and useful, to con- 
 
CHAP. IX.] OF VERBS. 147 
 
 vert it it into an accurate idea of time, it is necessary that the notion 
 of futurity should be superadded. It is a mistake to say that the 
 present impression is distinguished from the memory of what is past 
 by superior vividness and strength. It often happens that things 
 present 
 
 Pass by us, like the idle wind 
 
 Which we regard not ; 
 
 whilst objects of memory so fully occupy our attention, that, like 
 Hamlet, we think we see them " in the mind's eye." Still we see 
 them (whilst we possess our reasoning faculties) not as present, but 
 as past, with a specific difference of perception. The perception of 
 the future, as such, is also specifically different from either of the 
 others. Reason and reflection alone could not explain to us the 
 necessity of such a distinction, because it is an element of reason, so 
 far as that faculty applies to events occurring in time. It would be 
 as correct to say, that by reasoning on the nature of light and colours, 
 we come to discover the sensations of red and green, as to say, that by 
 reasoning on duration, we come to discover that there is a past, a 
 present, and a future. When we treat of these portions of time, we 
 treat of them with reference to some particular moment ; for as time 
 is perpetually flowing on, that which was future yesterday is to-day 
 present, and that which was present yesterday is to-day past. The 
 particular moment which thus characterises the time, is that in which 
 the speaker or writer is addressing himself to his hearers or readers. 
 We have seen, however, that that moment is not always referred to 
 as indivisible, but sometimes as capable of extension and indefinite 
 continuance. So it was observed to be in the present and past ; and 
 so it is in the future. A person may say, " I shall mount my horse ;" 
 and he may say, " I shall be an hour riding from London to Richmond." 
 In the former instance the tense may be called the future perfect ; in 
 the latter the future imperfect. Again, the future may be definite ; 
 as, "I shall mount at six o'clock ;" or, indefinite, as " I shall ride 
 some time in the course of the day." * Lastly, the act may be positive, 
 that is, it may be considered only as future at the moment of speak- 
 ing (which is the case with all the preceding examples), or it may be 
 relative, considering the act as not to take place till after some other 
 which is also future. Thus, a person may say, " I shall have mounted 
 my horse before the clock has struck ;" or " I shall have been riding an 
 hour when I reach the next milestone." 
 
 284. These distinctions refer properly to time. There are others other dis- 
 which refer to the contingency of the act, or to its frequency and mc lons * 
 habitual performance ; these seem to draw their distinctive character 
 
 * In our English idiom, the verbs "I shall mount," and "I shall ride," appear, 
 in these instances, to be equally definite, and the indefinite character of the latter 
 is only to be collected from the context ; but possibly in some other languages 
 there may be a formal as well as a substantial difference of tense, answering to this 
 distinction. 
 
 l2 
 
148 OF VERBS. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 from the mood, or kind of verb, and, therefore, may be deemed not 
 so much tenses as modifications of the tenses already named. Some- 
 what more of doubt may, perhaps, be allowable with respect to those 
 forms of speech which imply either the immediate intention to begin 
 an act, or its recent completion. Of the first class are "I am about 
 to write," " I was beginning to write," " I shall begin to write :" 
 and of the second class Je viens d'ecrire, " I have just written ;" Je 
 vends d'ecrire, " I had just written ;" "Eo-o/xeu yeypa<f)ioQ, " I shall 
 have done writing." Yet though these forms of speech serve to mark 
 given periods of time, and therefore may be called tenses, they also 
 seem to go somewhat further, by including other notions not strictly 
 referable to time. At all events, there must be a limit to the com- 
 binations, which are distinguished as tenses. Time is capable of 
 endless divisions, and language would be infinitely minute in all its 
 ramifications, if it provided a separate inflection for all those separate 
 modifications of thought. It is true, that idioms vary in nothing 
 more than in the varieties of tense for which they provide. Some 
 languages are very meagre in this respect, others luxuriant; some are 
 strictly confined to differences of time, others mix up, with these, a 
 variety of other considerations. Thus the English language marks a 
 distinction unknown, I believe, to any other language, between the 
 future of choice and the future of necessity : and what is remarkable, 
 that distinction varies with the different persons of the tense. " I 
 shall go" implies no particular volition, nor indeed anything but the 
 certainty of the event. " I will go" implies absolute volition. On 
 the other hand, '' you will go" implies no volition of any person, but 
 " you shall go" implies the volition of the speaker. It is a striking 
 proof how much nicety and difficulty there is in the peculiar use of 
 the tenses of verbs, that scarcely a single Scottish writer, however 
 eminent, will be found to have accurately observed the distinctions of 
 " shall" and " will" throughout all his compositions. The reason is, 
 that the writers in question have from infancy become accustomed to 
 the Scottish idiom, and idiom is much less a matter of reasoning than 
 of habit. A critical examination of the idioms regarded as most 
 elegant, will show them to abound with the same pleonasms and 
 ellipses, which are commonly considered as marks of rusticity in the 
 language of the common people. The English idiom above-mentioned, 
 however, is of very simple explication. It refers primarily to the mil 
 of the speaker. If, therefore, he says " I will," it is to be understood 
 that, so far as his power extends, the action is to be performed ; but 
 if he says " I shall," inasmuch as he indicates no volition of his own, 
 nothing further is to be inferred but the futurity of the action. Again, 
 if he says " you shall go," he " shall go," he intimates a necessity ; for 
 the original meaning of shall is that which is necessary, and must, or 
 at least, ought to be done, from the Mseso-Gothic skal* But this 
 
 * See Junius ad vocem. Also Wachter, schuld, schuldig. 
 
CHAP. IX.] OF VERBS. 149 
 
 necessity, being declared by the speaker, relates to his will alone. 
 Thus, in Coriolanus : — 
 
 Sicinius. ■ : It is a mind 
 
 That shall remain a poison where it is, 
 
 Not poison any further. 
 Coriolanus. Shall remain ? 
 
 Hear you this Triton of the minnows ? Mark you 
 
 His absolute shall ? 
 
 On the other hand, when the speaker says " you will go," " he will 
 go," he intimates no will of his own ; and, therefore, nothing is under- 
 stood but the futurity of the action. The proper force and effect, 
 therefore, of the two English futures may be thus expressed : — 
 
 1. Future compulsory. " I will go," i. e., it is my will to go. 
 " Thou shalt go," i. e., it is my will to compel thee to go. " He shall 
 go," i. e., it is my will to compel him to go. 
 
 2. Future not compulsory. " I shall go," i. e., there is some cause 
 compelling me to go, independently of my will. " Thou wilt go," i. e., 
 there is some cause compelling thee to go, independently of my will. 
 " He will go," i. e. y there is some cause compelling him to go, inde- 
 pendently of my will. The same reasoning applies to the plural 
 number as to the singular; and, consequently, '* we will go," " ye 
 shall go," " they shall go," belong to the first kind of future ; and 
 " we shall go," " ye will go," " they will go," belong to the second. 
 What I have here called the future compulsory has sometimes a 
 merely permissive force, sometimes a promissive, and sometimes it is 
 used in the manner of an imperative mood, as " Thou shalt not steal," 
 " Thou shalt do no murder," for " steal not," " murder not ;" and this 
 idiom is found both in the Greek and Latin : "'Eaeade ovv bfieig teXelol, 
 Ye shall be therefore perfect, i. e., Be ye therefore perfect, St. Matt, 
 ch. v. v. 48. And so Horace : Inter cuncta, leges, et percunctabere 
 doctos. Lib. L Epist. 18. But though various circumstances, of the 
 nature of those which have been already pointed out, do, in fact, 
 enter into the composition of tenses in various languages ; yet they 
 do not properly belong to the scientific division of tenses in Universal 
 Grammar, which ought to regard only distinctions of time, and not 
 these beyond a certain degree of minuteness and complexity. Where 
 the divisions of time are very minute or complex, their expression rather 
 forms a sentence than a word. It is something more than the mind can 
 easily grasp or communicate in one combined form ; and which, there- 
 fore, to be understood, requires to be analysed into different words. 
 
 In a subject which has undergone such various treatment by gram- 
 marians, as the distribution of tenses, I am far from arrogating to my 
 own method any very superior merit ; still less do I recommend the 
 name which I have given to each tense as the best calculated to express 
 its distinctive character. Instead of the perfect and imperfect, some 
 writers use the terms absolute and continuous ; and those tenses which I 
 
Harries 
 
 scheme. 
 
 150 OF VERBS. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 have called positive and relative, correspond nearly with the perfectum 
 and the plusquam perfectum, thefuturum, and paulo-post futurum. 
 
 285. The arrangement proposed by the learned Mr. Harris, though 
 differing considerably from that which I have suggested, is, I must 
 acknowledge, entitled to great attention : and, therefore, without going 
 into all his reasonings in favour of it (contained in the 7th chapter of 
 the 1st book of Hermes), I think it right to state its general outline. 
 
 " Tenses," he observes, " are used to mark present, past, and 
 future time, either indefinitely, without reference to any beginning, 
 middle, or end ; or else definitely, in reference to such distinctions. 
 
 " If indefinitely, then have we three tenses, called aorists (so called 
 from the Greek aopiarov, undefined, or unlimited), viz., an aorist of the 
 present, an aorist of the past, and an aorist of the future. 
 
 " If definitely, then have we nine other tenses, viz., three to mark 
 the beginnings of the present, past, and future respectively, three to 
 denote their middles, and three to denote their ends. 
 
 " The three first of these nine tenses we call the inceptive present, 
 the inceptive past, and the inceptive future : the three next the middle 
 present, the middle past, and the middle future ; and the three last the 
 completive present, the completive past, and the completive future. 
 
 "And thus there are in all twelve tenses, of which three denote 
 time absolutely, and nine denote time under its respective distinc- 
 tions." 
 
 1 . Denoting time absolutely and indefinitely : — 
 
 1. Aorist of the present, ypa^w, scribo, I write; 
 
 2. Aorist of the past, eypaxpa, scripsi, I wrote ; 
 
 3. Aorist of the future, ypdxpoj, scribam, I shall write. 
 
 2. Denoting time under the respective distinctions of inception, 
 continuity, and completion, 
 
 1. Denoting inception : — 
 
 1. Inceptive present, fxiXk(o ypatyeiv, scripturus sum, lam 
 about to write ; 
 
 2. Inceptive past, ejneXKov ypdcpetv, scripturus eram, I 
 was beginning to write ; 
 
 3. Inceptive future, fieWrjau) ypatyuv, scripturus ero, I 
 j shall be beginning to write. 
 
 2. Denoting continuance : — 
 
 1. Extended present, rvyxdvio ypdcjxov, scribo, or scribens 
 sum, I am writing; 
 
 2. Extended past, eypatyov, or krvyyavov ypa<pu>v, scri- 
 bebam, I was writing ; 
 
 3. Extended future, eaofiai ypdtpojy, scribens ero, I shall be 
 writing. 
 
 3. Denoting completion : — 
 1. Completive present, yeypaipa, scripsi, I have written; 
 
CHAP. IX.J OF VERBS. 151 
 
 2. Completive past, iyeypatyeiv, scripseram, I had done 
 
 writing ; 
 
 3. Completive future, eaofxat yeypatywg, scripsero, I shall 
 
 have done writing. 
 
 Whatever arrangement we adopt, we shall certainly not find it 
 folly followed out in many languages ; for while some have great 
 varieties of inflection or construction to express the different times, 
 others have fewer; and yet it may happen that the idiom, which 
 upon the whole is the least rich in tenses, is more minute than all the 
 others in some one particular distinction. 
 
 286. On the combination of tense with mood, much judicious Connectjonof 
 criticism is to be found in various grammarians, and particularly in Mood." 1 
 the work last quoted, the Hermes of Mr. Harris, who has collected 
 not only his own observations, but those of the philosophers of suc- 
 cessive ages : for the pure science of Universal Grammar rests on a 
 knowledge of the operations of the human mind ; which (so far at 
 least as regards the intellectual powers) were profoundly investigated, 
 and ably explained, both by Greek and Roman grammarians. Those 
 learned men were not only conversant with the intellectual philosophy 
 of then time, but were themselves philosophers of no mean rank. 
 Such a person was Apollonius of Alexandria, surnamed AwkoXoq, 
 or " the difficult," whose four books -repi ^vvrd^ewr, " on Syntax," are 
 considered to be the most philosophical of any extant on the Greek 
 language. He himself says he composed them, jiera Tzhar\g afcptjScmg, 
 " with all possible accuracy." Priscian, who professes to make him 
 his chief guide, says of his dissertations, Quid Apollonii scrupulosis 
 qwcestionibus enucleatius possit inveniri? The celebrated Theodore 
 Gaza confesses that he owes to him almost everything. The learned 
 Thomas Lixacer follows him, as it were step by step. And lastly, 
 Harris, who quotes him liberally throughout the whole of Hermes, 
 declares him to be " one of the acutest authors that ever wrote on 
 the subject of Grammar." In thus tracing the literary genealogy of 
 grammatical authorities, I at once prove their present title to respect, 
 and show that it could not have subsisted through so many centuries, 
 if it had not been originally founded on superior talent and ability. 
 When, therefore, I find an author like Apollonius employing much 
 learning on the illustration of the tenses, and their combination with the 
 different moods, I cannot be persuaded that such speculations are 
 wholly trifling or useless to those who would obtain a perfect ac- 
 quaintance with the science of Grammar. Now Apollonius, observing 
 on the connection above noticed between the future tense and the 
 imperative mood, satisfactorily explains why in most languages there 
 is not a distinct form for the future tense of that mood. The reason 
 is that all imperatives are in their nature futures; for thus argues 
 Apollonius : — ''E-n-l yap ^o) yivofxevoig v fir} yeyovoaiv r/ lipoara^tg' 
 ra ce /urj ywofxeva ?} jjly] yeyovora, ETn-nleior-qra Ie tyowa iiq to 
 eaaOai, MeXXovtoq ion. " A command has respect to those things 
 
152 OF VERBS. . [CHAP. IX. 
 
 which either are not doing or have not yet been done. But those 
 things which being not now doing, or having not yet been done, have 
 a natural aptitude to exist hereafter, may be properly said to apper- 
 tain to the future." And again, he says, "Kmavra rh TrpocrraKTiKa 
 eyKEijjLivrjy e^et rr\v tov fxeWovTog Ztadeaiv — aye^bv 'yap kv 'irra) earl 
 to, 6 TvpavvoKTOvvaag TificMrdb), to* rifxrjdrfcreTaij Kara tyjv yjpovov 
 'ivvoiav' rfj eiackiffei rUrfWa^oe, Kadb to jj-ev 7rpo(TTaKTucbv, to he 
 bpiaTiKov. " All imperatives have a disposition within them which 
 regards the future. With regard to time, therefore, it is the same 
 thing to say, Let him that hills a tyrant he honoured, as to say, He 
 that hills a tyrant shall he honoured ; the difference being only in the 
 mood, inasmuch as the one is imperative, the other indicative." So 
 Priscian shows the connection of the imperative with the future. — 
 u Imperativus verb proesens, et futurum (tempus) naturali quadam neces- 
 sitate videtur posse accipere. Ea enim imperamus, quo? vel in proesenti 
 statim volumus fieri, sine aliqud dilatione, vel in futuro." " The im- 
 perative (mood) seems to receive the present and future (tenses) by a 
 certain natural necessity; for, we command those things which we 
 wish to be done, either immediately at present, without any delay, or 
 hi future." From this reasoning, it is plain that the present tense of 
 the imperative mood is a present inceptive, looking necessarily to a 
 continuance or completion in futurity. It expresses on the part of the 
 speaker a present will ; but on the part of the person addressed a 
 future act : and that futurity may either begin from the moment of 
 speaking, or at a more distant period. 
 
 Thus, when Lear cautions Kent not to interfere between him and 
 his anger to Cordelia, the will and the act are closely conjoined : — 
 
 Come not between the dragon and his wrath ! 
 But when he imprecates curses on his unnatural and cruel daughters, 
 the object of his prayer is one which cannot take effect till long after- 
 wards, and which may continue for a course of years : — 
 
 . If she must teem, 
 
 Create her child of spleen, that it may live 
 And be a thwart, disnatur'd torment to her ; . 
 Let it stamp wrinkles on her brow of youth, 
 With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks, 
 Turn all her mother's pains and benefits 
 To laughter and contempt. 
 
 Nor is it only the imperative mood which may be connected with 
 a future time. Vossius has observed, that what is commonly called 
 the present conjunctive has in some instances a future import ; as, 
 when Cicero says, in one of his epistles to Atticus, " Est mihi^prw- 
 cipua causa manendi ; de qua utinam aliquando tecum loquarT " I 
 have a particular reason for staying here, concerning which I hope I 
 may some time or other talk to you ;" where utinam loquar, " I hope 
 I may talk," relates entirely to a future time. It is needless here to 
 follow the numerous and minute remarks of many learned critics on 
 
CHAP. IX.] OF VERBS. 153 
 
 the mixed or variable times which are expressed by all the con- 
 junctive tenses. Suffice it to say, that the combination of any mood 
 which implies contingency or futurity, with a tense, referring to 
 present or past time, must necessarily affect the expression of time, 
 and, consequently, that in this respect, the tenses of the indicative 
 must differ from the analogous tenses in any other mood. As, there- 
 fore, in nouns, the term gender, originally used to express the mere 
 distinction of sex, has been applied in use to distinguish large classes 
 of words from each other, with reference only to their terminations ; 
 so in verbs the word Tense, originally meaning the expression of time 
 alone, has been also used in most grammars to express that concep- 
 tion in combination with the others above noticed. 
 
 287. From the remaining essential property of the verb, namely, Person, 
 the expression of Attribute, arises the necessity for a distinction of 
 Person ; for every attribute must relate to a subject of the first, 
 second, or third person, as above distinguished. The form of the verb 
 may or may not be altered on this account. We may say in Latin 
 amo, amamus, amatis, amant, or in English " I love," " we love," " ye 
 love," " they love;" but it is manifest that though in the examples 
 cited from the latter language the form remains unchanged, the sig- 
 nification is alike varied in both languages. The difference of person, 
 therefore, in point of form, is merely accidental to the verb : it pecu- 
 liarly belongs to the pronoun, and has been sufficiently explained in 
 treating of that part of speech. In many languages, the person of the 
 verb is necessarily expressed by a separate pronoun. This is univer- 
 sally the case in the Chinese, for the verb being alike in all the 
 persons, it would be impossible to distinguish one from the other 
 without the addition of some other word. The three persons singular 
 
 of the present tense ran thus : — 
 
 Ngo Ngai, I love ; 
 
 Ni Ngai, Thou lovest ; 
 
 Ta Ngai, He loves. 
 And the same occurs in the other tenses, and in the plural number. 
 
 In English we find it partially the case ; for though in the singular 
 we have three distinctions of person in the present, as " I love," 
 " thou lovest," " he loves," and two in the past, as " I loved," " thou 
 lovedst," yet in all other parts (with the exception of the irregular to 
 he) the verb remains unaltered. Nor does this arise from any pecu- 
 liarity in the original genius of our language, for the more ancient 
 dialects, from which it is derived, abounded with personal terminations. 
 JSow these terminations, as will be shown hereafter, were, in their 
 origin, nothing more than the pronouns themselves, which, in process 
 of time, coalesced with the expression of attribute, connection, asser- 
 tion, and time, and so formed words, signifying at once all these 
 different circumstances, together with the additional distinction of 
 person. 
 
 288. Some verbs are called impersonal, a name which only seems impersonate. 
 
154 OF VERBS. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 to mean that they are not usually conjugated with distinction of per- 
 sons, but remain always in the form of the third person. If they had 
 no other peculiarity than that from which their name is derived, it 
 might not be necessary to notice them in a treatise on Universal 
 Grammar ; but, in truth, they are constructed on a principle different 
 from that which has been already explained in reference to person. 
 The impersonals are of two kinds, active and neuter. By active I 
 mean those which require an object, as " it grieves me," "it becomes 
 me," miseret me, decet me, &c. ; by neuter I mean those verbs of which 
 the action terminates in itself, as " it rains," " it snows," " it is hot," 
 " it is cold ;" the Latin pluit, the French il fait chaud, the Italian fa 
 freddo, the German es donnert, esfriert, &c." In all these instances the 
 verb contains a mere assertion of the existence of the conception • but 
 does not indicate any agent. These verbs have been sometimes ex- 
 plained as agreeing with a nominative implied in them : thus pudet is 
 said to be a verb agreeing with the implied nominative pudor, as if 
 the meaning were, " shame shames me;" but this is rather a formal 
 than a substantial explanation. Pudet in reality contains, and does 
 not merely imply the noun pudor : it expresses the same conception as 
 the noun, and asserts its existence. It is therefore rather of the nature 
 of a verb substantive, than of a verb active ; and though, in some 
 idioms, a nominative is expressed, yet in reality that nominative is 
 superfluous, or, at most, is only introduced to keep up the general 
 analogy of the language. The nominative it in the English language, 
 and il in French, have no distinct reference to any conception. They 
 are pronouns, which do not stand for any noun. If any one should 
 say, " It rains," we cannot, as in the common case, where a distinct 
 nominative is expressed, ask ' ' what rains ?" for the answer would 
 only be it; and if we were then to ask, " what is it?" we must be 
 left without any answer. Hence, in translation, the nominative it is 
 often lost. We do not say in Latin, Hoc pluit ; nor in Greek, TOYTO 
 Xpff. The proper notion of an impersonal verb, therefore, is, that it 
 asserts the existence of an action, without reference to any particular 
 agent. 
 Number. 289. The expression of Number is another accidental property of 
 
 the verb ; and belongs to it only in so far as the verb may be com- 
 bined with the expression of person. It is, therefore, like the same 
 property in the adjective, a mere method of connecting it in construc- 
 tion with the noun substantive, or pronoun, which forms its nominative. 
 Accordingly, it applies to verbs in the same manner as it does to 
 nouns and pronouns.. When they admit a dual number, as in Sanscrit, 
 Arabic, and Greek, the verb admits the same ; when they do not, it 
 has only a singular and a plural. Indeed, the matter could not well 
 be otherwise, if, as has been already stated, the personal terminations 
 of the verb be really the pronouns themselves coalescing with it. The 
 verb is equally said to be in the singular or plural, whether it has or 
 has not distinct terminations appropriated to those different numbers ; 
 
CHAP. IX.] OF VERBS. 155 
 
 we call " I love" singular, and " we love" plural ; but it is manifest, 
 that in all such instances the expression of number exists only in the 
 pronoun. These are questions of Particular Grammar : all that can 
 be laid down on the subject, as a rule of Universal Grammar, is, that 
 as on the one hand there is nothing in the peculiar nature of the verb 
 which involves the idea of number, so there is nothing in the idea of 
 number which can prevent it from being combined with the verb, 
 where the genius of the language permits such a union. 
 
 290. Since the verb, by means of its connection with the pronoun, Gender, 
 admits person and number, there is no reason why it should not also 
 admit Gender ; and, in fact, this distinction obtains in the Arabic, the 
 Ethiopic, and some other languages. It is, however, rare ; and as 
 gender properly belongs only to nouns, or pronouns substantive, with 
 respect to which it has been already discussed, we need not here 
 pursue the investigation. 
 
 291. Some writers contend, that the verb, as expressing an attri- Comparison, 
 bute, is capable of Comparison ; nor does it appear that this can be 
 gainsaid, if we regard only the attributive nature of the verb. There 
 
 are, indeed, certain attributes, as has been already observed, which are 
 not intensive ; and these of course cannot admit degrees of comparison ; 
 neither can the assertive power be compared : for the verb must assert 
 a thing either to exist, or not to exist. On the other hand, verbs 
 may be compounded with conceptions implying comparison, as " to 
 outdo" " to overtake" subesse, superesse, &c. They may too, in 
 general, be compared by means of the adverbs of comparison, more, 
 most, Jess, least, &c. ; but I am not aware that it has been attempted, 
 in any language, to combine in one and the same word the assertive 
 power with the comparative. It is not easy to conceive any form of 
 verb which in itself would express the degrees of comparison ; and the 
 reason probably is, that though the mere qualities of substance may 
 be simply intensive, yet actions are intensive in various modes, as well 
 as in various degrees. Of different substances, concerning which 
 whiteness can be predicated, some may be more and some less white ; 
 but of different beings concerning which the act of walking may be 
 predicated, all equally walk, though one walks more, another less ; 
 one faster, another slower, &c. : and so of mental action, several per- 
 sons love, but one loves more warmly, another more violently, another 
 more purely; so that there is not in actions, as there is in qualities, 
 a simple scale of elevation and depression ; and, consequently, the 
 mere comparison of more and less would not answer all the purposes 
 of language, as applied to the verb, though it does as applied to the 
 adjective. For this reason participles, when they are compared, lose 
 their participial power ; for sapientior and potentior do not express 
 acts, but habits, or fixed qualities, and therefore answer to the English 
 adjectives "wiser," and "more powerful." 
 
 292. Thus have we seen, that though the proper force and effect of Condition. 
 the verb — that on which its peculiar character depends — is assertion, 
 
156 OF VERBS. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 yet it is capable of combining therewith, and in fact it does so combine, 
 not only the conception of attribute which Priscian calls the res of 
 the verb, but the expression of mood, tense, person, number, and even 
 gender. " Observe," says the President Des Brosses, " how, in one 
 single word, so loaded with accessory notions, everything is marked, 
 every notion has its member, and the analogical formulas are preserved 
 throughout on the plan first laid down." Elsewhere he adds, " All 
 this composition is the work, not of a deeply-meditated combination, 
 nor of a well-reasoned philosophy, but of the metaphysics of instinct." 
 The Goths, the Saxons, the Greeks, and the Latins, in forming the 
 schemes of conjugation above noticed, were probably impelled by 
 principles in the human mind, the very existence of which they hardly 
 suspected. Similar principles have operated, but with endless diversity 
 of application, in the formation of all the various dialects which have 
 been spoken in ancient and modern times, by nations the most bar- 
 barous and the most civilized ; and it is the development and explica- 
 tion of these ever-operative principles which forms the proper object 
 of the science of Universal Grammar. 
 
( 157 ) 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 OF ARTICLES. 
 
 293. Having explained the uses of the principal parts of speech Accessory 
 
 ■i-i- • •■ t j. .Li. • parts of 
 
 employed in enunciative sentences, 1 come now to the accessories, speech. 
 The principal parts, as has been fully stated, are those which are 
 necessary for communicating thought in a simple sentence : and the 
 communication of thought requires the naming of some conception, 
 and the assertion of its existence as an object either of perception or of 
 volition. Conceptions are named by the noun : they are asserted to 
 exist by the verb ; but it often becomes desirable to modify either the 
 name, or the assertion, or the union of both. How is this to be 
 done ? Certain modifications may be incorporated with the noun by 
 its cases, and numbers, and genders ; with the verb by its moods, 
 tenses, and persons ; with the adjective by its degrees of comparison ; 
 and with the participle, gerund, supine, and infinitive, by their marks 
 of time, relation, &c. The same, or similar effects, may be produced 
 by separate words ; and what must those separate words be ? Nouns, 
 or verbs, which, appearing in subordinate characters, are no longer to 
 be considered such as they were formerly. 
 
 294. We wish to modify a conception; how can we do it but by Howmodi- 
 another conception ? We wish to modify an assertion ; how can we words? 
 do it but by another assertion ? It is therefore plain that the acces- 
 sory words must have had originally the character of principals ; that 
 is to say, they must have been either nouns or verbs. This is a truth 
 extremely obvious in itself, and of which many grammarians have 
 been fully aware ; but there is another truth, which seems to have 
 been less apprehended, namely, that these subordinate and accessor}' 
 words act as such a very different part from that which they sustained 
 as principals in a sentence. The mind dwells on them more slightly ; 
 they express a more transient operation of the intellect. In process of 
 time some of them come to lose their original meaning, and to be 
 only significant as modifying other nouns and verbs. It cannot be 
 denied that the words and, the, with, and the like, have no distinct 
 meaning, at present, in our language, except that which depends on 
 their association and connection with other words. The etymologist 
 may succeed, or he may not succeed, in his attempts to trace these 
 non-significant words to the significant words from which they are 
 derived ; but whether he be successful or unsuccessful, the fact will 
 be no less certain, that in their secondary use they lose their primary 
 character and signification ; they are no longer nouns or verbs, but 
 inferior parts of speech, commonly termed articles, prepositions, con- 
 
nated. 
 
 158 OF ARTICLES. [CHAP. X. 
 
 junctions, and adverbs, each of which classes I shall examine in its 
 order. 
 Howtesig- 295. These inferior parts of speech have been called particles: 
 and, as such, are sometimes distinguished from words, and sometimes 
 treated only as separate classes of words. To explain and account 
 for them seems to have given much trouble to many grammatical and 
 philosophical writers : and after all, the subject has been often left in 
 a state of great confusion. Mr. Locke, in his second volume, has a 
 vague chapter on particles, from which it may be inferred that he 
 considered nouns to be the names of thoughts, or, as he expresses it, 
 of ideas. All other words serve, according to him, to connect ideas. 
 The principal of these (which I call the-verb) he calls the mark of 
 affirming or denying; and he says, "the words whereby the mind 
 signifies what connection it gives to the several affirmations and nega- 
 tions that it unites in one continued reasoning or narration are called 
 particles." Elsewhere he says of these particles, " they are not truly 
 by themselves names of any ideas ;" and again, " they are all marks 
 of some action or intimation of the mind, and therefore, to understand 
 them rightly, the several views, postures, stands, turns, limitations, 
 and exceptions, and several other thoughts of the mind, for which we 
 have either none or very deficient names, are diligently to be studied." 
 The confusion which occurs in these passages between " ideas," 
 " thoughts,' 1 and "actions or intimations of the mind," shows that 
 Locke attached no distinct meaning to any of these words ; but so far 
 as they lead to a grammatical doctrine, it would seem that he con- 
 ceived particles not to be derived from nouns. Hoogeveen speaks 
 much more intelligibly. He says, " particulas in sua infantiafuisse 
 vel verba, vel nomina, vel ex nominibus formata adverbia." " The par- 
 ticles were, in their infancy, either verbs or nouns, or adverbs formed 
 from nouns." " Ipso? verb, quantenus particul^e, per se soloe spec- 
 tator, nihil significant." " They themselves, as particles, considered 
 alone, signify nothing." And again, in defining the particle, he says, 
 " particulam esse voculam, ex nomine vel verbo natam." " The par- 
 ticle is a small word derived from a noun or a verb." Had Mr. 
 Tooke properly reflected on these passages, which he quotes from 
 Hoogeveen, he would have found them to contain all that was valu- 
 able in his own system, without the errors into which he has fallen. 
 The term particle, indeed, is not well chosen, to include the inferior 
 parts of speech ; nor do grammarians agree as to the extent of its 
 signification. Locke only describes it as including " prepositions and 
 conjunctions, &c. ;" leaving it to his reader's judgment to determine 
 what classes of words fall under the et ccetera : Scaliger says, " ut 
 omittam particulas minores, cujusmodi sunt prcepositiones, conjunctiones, 
 interjectiones :" and Hoogeveen, as is seen above, seems to distinguish 
 the particle from the adverb ; whilst other grammarians include in it 
 all indeclinable words, and even the article, which in Greek is de- 
 clinable. It is unnecessary to adopt any generic term as designating 
 
CHAP. X.] OF ARTICLES. 159 
 
 all the accessorial parts of speech ; nor do I deem it advisable to dis- 
 tribute them as Harris has done into two classes, which he names 
 definitives and connectives. I shall, however, begin with the article, 
 which he arranges under the definitives. 
 
 296. The Article is a part of speech serving to reduce a noun sub- Use of the 
 stantive from a general to a particular signification. I have already 
 observed, in speaking of nouns, that by far the greater part of them 
 must be what Mr. Locke calls general terms, that is to say, names 
 common to many conceptions. We cannot give a distinct name to 
 every distinct object that we perceive, nor to every distinct thought 
 which passes through the mind ; nor are these thoughts, or even 
 these objects, so entirely distinct to human conception as many per- 
 sons are apt to imagine. If I see a horse to-day, and another horse 
 to-morrow, the conceptions which I form of these different objects are 
 indeed different in some respects ; but in others they agree. The 
 one horse may be black, and the other white ; but they are both 
 quadrupeds, both have hoofs, &c. The word horse is a noun, ex- 
 pressing the conception which I form of all the points in which I 
 perceive them to agree. This word, therefore, applies to a class of 
 conceptions ; but it is necessary that I should possess some means of 
 expressing the individuals of that class. Now those means are 
 afforded by adding the article to the noun. To illustrate what I 
 mean, let us take a general term ; for instance, the word man. The 
 conception expressed by this word alone is one which exists in several 
 other conceptions, as in that which is formed of " Peter," or of 
 " James," or of " John." Peter, therefore, is a word expressing the 
 general conception, " man," together with something peculiar to a 
 certain individual ; and the same may be said of James and John ; 
 but it must frequently happen that the proper name Peter, or James, 
 or John, is unknown to us. How, then, are we to express our con- 
 ception of either of them ? To each the term " man " belongs ; but 
 it belongs to each equally ; and therefore it does not distinguish the 
 individual from his class, nor one individual from another. If, there- 
 fore, we use this term " man," we must also employ some other 
 means of showing that we mean by it this or that man ; or at least 
 some one man, as distinguished from the conception of " man " in 
 general. Now, these means are afforded by the article ; and they 
 are afforded in two different ways : we either speak of the general 
 term simply, as applicable to a general notion of individuality, or else 
 with relation to some particular circumstance which we know belongs 
 only to a certain individual. In the former case we may be said to 
 enumerate, in the latter to demonstrate, the person or thing intended. 
 In the one we say positively " a man," in the other we say relatively 
 " the man." 
 
 297. Hence arise two classes of articles. They have been called Two classes, 
 the indefinite and the definite ; but it has been justly observed by 
 Harris that they both define, only the latter defines more perfectly 
 
Whether 
 necessary. 
 
 160 OF ARTICLES. [CHAP. X. 
 
 than the former. It would, perhaps, be more appropriate to call the 
 one positive, and the other relative, or the one numeral, and the other 
 demonstrative. I shall adopt the two first of these designations, 
 merely for convenience ; but I consider the names by which it may 
 be thought fit to designate the different classes of words, as com- 
 paratively unimportant. The most material object is to establish the 
 classification itself on clear and intelligible principles. 
 
 298. Grammarians have disputed whether the article be, or be 
 not, a necessary part of speech. Before this question can be properly 
 answered, it must be clearly stated. Mr. Tooke says, " in all lan- 
 guages there are only two sorts of words which are necessary for the 
 communication of our thoughts ; and these are, 1. noun, and 2. verb;" 
 and he adds, that he uses the words noun and verb " in their common 
 acceptation." It would seem from this, that he meant to describe 
 the article as unnecessary ; for in common acceptation it is certainly 
 not considered to be identical, either with the noun, or with the verb. 
 However, he afterwards describes it as " necessary for the communi- 
 cation of thought," and even " denies its absence from the Latin, or 
 from any other language." Those ancient writers who considered the 
 noun and the verb as the only, or, at least, as the principal and more 
 distinguished parts of speech, either included the article among the 
 syncatagoremata, that is, consignificant words, or else denied its neces- 
 sity, and even its existence, in some languages, particularly in the 
 Latin. Noster sermo, says Qutncttlian, Articulos non desiderat. 
 Articulos, says Priscian, quibus nos caremus — Articulos integros in 
 nostra non invenimus Lingua. And so Scaliger, Articulus nobis nullus, 
 et Greeds superfluus. And Vossius, Articulum, quern Fabio teste 
 Latinus sermo non desiderat, imb, mejudice,planb ignorat. From these 
 authorities, and indeed from a very slight inspection of the language 
 itself, it is clear that the Latin had no separate words answering to 
 the articles of the English and other languages ; nor is it less clear, 
 that the Greek had only the relative article 6, rj, to, and was entirely 
 destitute of our positive article. Mr. Tooke is undoubtedly right in 
 inferring, from the necessity of general terms, the necessity of the 
 article ; if we thereby understand the necessity of some means to 
 apply general terms to their individual instances. He is, however, 
 wrong in supposing that this purpose is always effected either by a 
 distinct word, or by some prefix or termination added to words : nor 
 is the ingenious but fanciful Cour de Gebelin less erroneous in 
 asserting that the article was supplied in Latin by the termination ; 
 for the termination in no manner whatsoever defined whether the 
 word was to be taken in a more or less general acceptation. It indi- 
 cated the case, the number, and the grammatical gender ; but it did 
 nothing else. Homo signified "Man" in general, or "a man," or 
 " the man" before spoken of; and the termination afforded no help 
 toward determining in which of these three senses the word was to 
 be taken in any particular passage. This was to be discovered in 
 
CHAP. X.] OF ARTICLES. 161 
 
 Latin, as in some other languages, merely by the context. If, 
 therefore, the question, whether the article be necessary, mean 
 whether a separate class of words performing the function of the 
 article be necessary, it must be resolved in the negative ; because no 
 such class is to be found in the Latin and some other languages. If, 
 on the other hand, it mean whether in all languages there must be 
 some mode of performing the function of the article, it must be 
 answered affirmatively ; and this is a question which, as it relates to 
 the operations of the Mind, properly falls within the scope of pure 
 Grammatical Science. 
 
 299. Even though a particular language may have no class of Distinguish* 
 words called articles, the persons speaking that language must cer- individual, 
 tainly distinguish, in their conceptions, the general from the individual. 
 In treating of the noun, I have already spoken of the different grada- 
 tions of conception ; but it is necessary to advert again to the grounds 
 of this distinction. The inattentive observer of external objects be- 
 lieves that their forms are always impressed distinctly on the eye ; 
 and that every superficies is bounded by a visible outline. A more 
 reflecting and more accurate philosophy teaches us, that even in con- 
 templating the objects which we most admire, imagination does more 
 than mere sensible impression toward supplying us with a knowledge 
 of their forms ; and that, in a sense not merely poetical, 
 
 We half create the wondrous world we see. 
 
 In like manner, the inattentive observer of the operations of Mind, as 
 they relate to language, is apt to suppose that all his thoughts or 
 conceptions are definite and distinct ; and, consequently, that the 
 words which serve to name these thoughts are so too ; but this is far 
 from being the case. Let us consider each of the three classes of 
 conception before noticed, viz., the conception of a particular object, 
 that of a general notion applicable to many particulars, and that of an 
 idea or universal truth. The first and last of these are in themselves 
 perfectly definite. No man can have two distinct ideas of " virtue," 
 considered absolutely and in the primary signification of the word : 
 and the same may be said of " squareness," " power," " duration," 
 "space," "wisdom," &c, &c. In like manner we cannot have two 
 distinct conceptions of a particular person or thing, and, therefore, 
 when we know its proper name, as " George," " Louis," " London," 
 " Paris," " Alexander," " Bucephalus," " Europe," " Guildhall," &c., 
 &c, it is unnecessary to prefix thereto any other word for the sake of 
 more clearly showing the individuality of our conception. Hence we 
 see the reason why neither proper names nor universal terms do of 
 necessity require to be used with an article, either positive or relative. 
 The idiom of a particular language may, indeed, sanction such a 
 construction ; but this depends on separate considerations, to which I 
 shall hereafter advert. Generally speaking, such idioms as the fol- 
 lowing cannot be necessary to intelligibility in anv language : " the 
 2. m 
 
General 
 terms. 
 
 162 OF ARTICLES. [CHAP. X. 
 
 George reigns in the England," or "a Guildhall is situated in a 
 London :" or, " the virtue produces a happiness ;" or " an Alexander 
 aimed at the glory ;" and the reason is obvious, because it is not 
 necessary to define or distinguish, in such sentences, one George from 
 another George, one England from another England, one virtue from 
 another virtue, &c. 
 
 300. But the remaining class of conceptions, though general in 
 their nature, serve to communicate the greater part of our knowledge 
 respecting particular objects. We have often no other conception of 
 the individual than that he belongs to such or such a species. We 
 know the man only by his profession, the soldier only by his regiment, 
 the officer only by his rank. Hence the great use of general terms in 
 all languages ; and hence, too, the necessity for individualizing them, 
 either tacitly in the mind, or expressly in language. When this pro- 
 cess of individualization is effected by a separate word, we call that 
 word an article ; and thus we say, that it is necessary, in English, 
 to add the article "a" or "the" to the general term "man," in 
 order to designate an individual of the human species. 
 Universale 301. It is to be observed, that, in a secondary sense, all words of 
 the other two classes may be considered and treated as general terms ; 
 and, consequently, may require the use of the article to individualize 
 them. For, first, the idea expressed by an universal term, such as 
 " virtue," " truth," and the like, may be considered as existing sepa- 
 rately in each subordinate conception of quality, action, &c, in which 
 it is involved. If we speak of virtue simply, as opposed to vice, or 
 in any other manner which regards the pure idea of virtue, without 
 any modification, it is an universal term which needs not the aid of 
 an article ; but if we speak of those subordinate ideas, such as 
 justice, prudence, temperance, fortitude, in each of which the higher 
 idea of virtue is involved, as the conception of man is in the concep- 
 tion of Peter or John, we may consider the word virtue, in a secondary 
 sense, as applicable to each of them separately, and therefore may 
 call each " a virtue," or " the virtue." And not only does this apply 
 to subordinate conceptions of the same kind and nature as their 
 superior, but sometimes to others, in which that superior is equally 
 involved. The conception of injustice is of the same kind and nature 
 as the conception of vice. They are both ideas, both universal, both 
 regard qualities of the mind ; but the conception of an unjust action 
 partakes, though in a remoter degree, of both these ideas, and there- 
 fore it is sometimes called " an injustice," or " a vice." Thus Hamlet, 
 on Horatio's saying that he is not acquainted with Osric, replies, 
 " Thy state is the more gracious, for 'tis a vice to know him." And 
 so Bassanio, urging the Duke to wrest the law to his authority, ex- 
 claims— • 
 
 To do a great right, do a little wrong. 
 It is only in this secondary sense that such words as virtue and vice, 
 right and wrong, can be employed in the plural number ; and hence 
 
CHAP. X.J OF ARTICLES. 163 
 
 arises in all languages a vast class of general terms, which unhappily 
 are but too often perverted in use. The idea of crime does not always 
 agree with our conceptions of crimes : and we often find an opposition 
 between the notions of right and rights, honour and honours. 
 
 302. Secondly, a proper name, which, in its primary sense, desig- Proper 
 nates only an individual man, may be made to stand for a conception names 
 common to many other individuals ; because we can suppose, how- 
 ever contrary it may be to fact, that there is a class of men, each pos- 
 sessing those qualities and powers which make up all that we know 
 
 of a certain individual. Thus the word Shakspeare primarily means 
 that wonderful poet who wrote Hamlet and the Midsummer Night's 
 Dream, who could portray the characters of Othello and Falstaff, 
 Richard II. and Richard III, and who as much excelled every 
 writer of his day in the sweetness and facility of his language, as he 
 did in richness of imagination and in profound knowledge of the 
 human heart. It is in vain to expect another being so endowed to 
 arise before the return of the fancied Platonic year ; and yet we may 
 suppose a whole club of such dramatists, like the " cluster of wits " in 
 Queen Anne's time ; we may imagine one from every country under 
 heaven; and therefore we may talk of "a French Shakspeare," or "a 
 German Shakspeare," "the Shakspeare of Tennessee," or "the Shak 
 speare of Timbuctoo." 
 
 303. The words which answer the purpose of individualizing Articles 
 general terms, in the two modes above described, were originally der!"e! 
 pronominal adjectives. In some instances they have undergone a 
 change of form, by becoming articles ; in others, they remain un- 
 changed. The French le and un, are the Latin ille and unus ; the 
 English the and a are the Anglo-Saxon thcet and ane. Hence, it is 
 
 not surprising, that many grammarians comprehend, under a common 
 designation, the demonstrative pronoun and the article. Such was 
 the doctrine of the Stoics, some of whom gave to both these kinds of 
 words the common name of article, calling our pronoun the definite 
 article ; and our article, the indefinite article ; whilst others consi- 
 dered both as pronouns, and only denominated our articles, articular 
 pronouns. " AHiculis autem pronomina connumer antes" says Priscian, 
 "finitos, et articulos appellabant ; ipsos autem articulos, infinitos articulos 
 dicebant ; vel ut alii dicunt, articulos connumerabant pronominibus, et 
 articularia eos pronomina vocabant." 
 
 304. There are, however, some marked differences between the Difference 
 pronominal adjective and the article, which may justify us in consi- noim. a Pr °" 
 dering the latter as a separate part of speech. In our own language, 
 
 the same words which act as pronominal adjectives may also be used 
 substantively ; and, in particular, the words that and one, are some- 
 times to be considered as substantive pronouns, as when we say, 
 " that which I love," " one whom I respect ;" but we cannot, in like 
 manner, say, "the which I love," "a whom I respect." This dis- 
 tinction, however, depends on the idiom of the English language, 
 
 m2 
 
164 OF ARTICLES. [CHAP. X. 
 
 and, therefore, will not afford a discriminating characteristic between 
 the separate parts of speech in Universal Grammar. But the case is 
 different, when we consider the manner in which the pronominal 
 adjective and the article respective!)- affect the meaning of a general 
 term. They both individualize it : but the article performs this func- 
 tion simply ; the pronominal adjective does more ; it marks some 
 special opposition between different individuals. When we say, 
 "the man is good," there is no opposition implied in the word "the," 
 although there may be in each of the other words. We may say, for 
 instance, 
 
 1. " The man is good ; but the ooy_ is bad." 
 
 2. " The man is good ; but he was bad." 
 
 3. " The man is good; but he is not wise" 
 
 On the contrary, when we say " that man is good," we imply no op- 
 position to the other words in the sentence, but only to the word 
 " that." We intimate not only that there is a particular individual 
 who is good, but also that there is some other, who is not good. 
 This distinction is strongly marked in Latin by the pronominal adjec- 
 tives hie and Me; as when Ovid says, 
 
 dissimiles Hie vir, et Ille puer. 
 
 Where the English article the is used, the Latins, who have no such 
 article, do not supply its place by the pronominal adjective, but use 
 the noun alone, as 
 
 Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, 
 
 Beatus vir, qui non dbiit in consilio impiorum ; and not Beatus ille vir. 
 It is manifest, that the act of the Mind is very different in the two 
 cases here spoken of. Simply to individualize, is a more transient 
 operation than to individualize and at the same time to contrast. 
 Hence, the word the is less susceptible of accentuation than the word 
 that. It resembles, in this respect, those Greek pronouns which are 
 called enclitic. When the oblique cases of the personal pronouns, in 
 that language, were used by way of contradistinction, they were 
 strongly accented, and were called by Grammarians opdorovovfihai, 
 uprightly accented ; but when they were merely subjoined to verbs, 
 without any emphasis being placed on them, they were called 
 'Ey/cXiriKat, that is, leaning, or inclining. Thus the Greeks had, in 
 the first person, 'Ejuov, 'E/zoi, 'E^tt, for contradistinction, and Mov, 
 Mot, Me, for enclitics ; whence Apollonius proposes, instead of the 
 common reading, in the beginning of the Iliad — 
 
 Yloubu. c\ fio) Xinrcan — 
 
 to read 
 
 Hx72x %' ip.01 Xutrairt. 
 
 For it is plain, argues he, that a distinction is intended by the Poet 
 between the words 'Yfxiv and 'Ejuot ; and therefore the enclitic fiol is 
 improper. The principle in the human mind, which converts the 
 
CHAP. X.] OF ARTICLES. 165 
 
 contradistinctive pronoun into an enclitic, is no other than the eager 
 desire of hastening toward the object of its wishes — 
 
 ad eventum festinat ,• 
 
 and the same principle it is, which converts the demonstrative pro- 
 noun into an article. Instead of "this horse," or "that horse," we 
 say "the horse :" shortening the article in pronunciation, because we 
 dwell but little upon it in thought. In the Anglo-Saxon language, 
 the word that appears to have been shortened into the ; and we have 
 retained the longer word for our pronoun, whilst we use the shorter 
 for our article. 
 
 305. Since it has appeared that some languages do not employ Not super- 
 separate words to perform the office of the article, it may be thought Q0US ' 
 that those words when so employed in any language are superfluous; 
 but this would be a great error. Articles add much to the clearness, 
 the strength, and the beauty of a language : and to be perfectly fur- 
 nished with them it is necessary to possess both positive and relative 
 articles. The Latin language had neither : the Greek had only the 
 latter of the two ; but most of the modern European languages have 
 both. It follows, that in this respect the Latin was less perfect than 
 the Greek, and the Greek than either the French or the English ; and 
 Scaliger was, therefore, wrong in denying the use of this part of 
 speech altogether: Articulus, says he, nobis nullus, et Greeds super- 
 fluus ; and his sarcasm on the French nation was somewhat misap- 
 plied, when he called the article otiosum loquacissimce gentis instru- 
 mentum. 
 
 306. Yet it must be allowed, that in many European languages, Sometimes 
 and in none more frequently than in the French, instances occur in ** use 
 which the article is employed superfluously. This circumstance is, 
 
 for the most part, attributable to an elliptical mode of speech, which 
 is sufficiently capricious. In English, we generally prefix the relative 
 article to the names of our rivers, but seldom to those of our moan- 
 tains. We say, " the Thames," " the Tweed;" i.e. the river 
 Thames, the river Tweed ; but we never say a Thames, a Tweed : 
 nor do we say the Snowdon, the Skiddaw ; or, a Snowdon, a Skid- 
 daw. In French, the superfluous use of the relative article is very 
 frequent ; but it is to be explained on the same principle of ellipsis. 
 " Ilseroit a souhaiter" says Condillac, "qu'on supprimdt V article, toutes 
 lesfois que les noms sont suffisamment determines par la nature de la chose, 
 ou par les circonstances ; le discours en seroit plus vif. Mais la grande 
 habitude, que nous nous en sommesfaite, ne le permit pas: et ce rtest que 
 dans des proverbes plus anciens que cette habitude, que nous nous faissons 
 un hi de le supprimer. On dit : Pauvrete" n'est pas vice, au lieu de dire, 
 La pauvrete n'est pas un vice" "It is to be wished that the article 
 were suppressed whenever the noun is sufficiently determined by the 
 nature of the thing, or by the circumstances ; the style would thereby 
 be rendered the more lively. But the great habit that we have ac- 
 
166 OF ARTICLES. LCHAP. X. 
 
 quired of using it, does not permit this change ; and it is only in old 
 proverbs, more ancient than this habit, that we make a rule of sup- 
 pressing it. We say, Pauvrete riest pas vice, instead of saying, La 
 pauvrete n'est pas un vice." It is here to be observed, that the pro- 
 verbial expression, which Condillac seems to recommend, is as much 
 defective as the common expression w T hich he blames is redundant. 
 The article la before pauvrete is superfluous, and originates in an 
 ellipsis of some word answering to " state " or " condition ; " so that 
 "the poverty," means "the condition of poverty:" but, on the other 
 hand, the word " vice" properly demands the article un ; for it is not 
 meant to deny that poverty is the idea of vice, which nobody would 
 have asserted ; but to deny that poverty is one of those states which 
 necessarily include the idea of vice. The most accurate and philoso- 
 phical mode of expressing this sentence would therefore be, if the 
 idiom of the language permitted it, 
 
 Pauvrete n'est pas un vice ; 
 
 answering exactly to the English idiom in such phrases. 
 
 As the French often employ the article redundantly with an uni- 
 versal term, and with the names of places, so the Italians employ it 
 with the names of persons : "II Tasso," "La Catalani," meaning "the 
 famous poet Tasso," " the celebrated singer Catalani." It is obvious 
 that these expressions are to be accounted for on the same principle 
 of ellipsis already explained. The article in all such cases does not in 
 reality serve to modify the proper name expressed, but the general 
 term understood. 
 
 Special effect. 307. There is a particular use of the relative article, with a gene- 
 ral term, to which I have before alluded, but which, as it tends to 
 individualize a general term in a peculiar manner, I must here more 
 particularly notice. Certain individuals, having obtained celebrity for 
 their peculiar excellences, have been denominated from this circum- 
 stance, as 6 7rotrjryg, the poet, means Homer ; 6 pfirwp, the orator, 
 Demosthenes; 6 SeoXoyog, the theologian, St. Gregory Nazianzen; 
 6 ysioypcKJiog, the geographer, Strabo ; 6 AeurpoarotyigTrjg, Athenaeus, 
 author of the work entitled " The Feast of the Sophists; " but this 
 is no more than we daily practise, when we speak of " the king," 
 " the queen," "the prince regent," meaning the king of England, the 
 queen of England, and the prince regent of England ; just as we hear 
 in private families and narrow circles of society, of " the captain," 
 " the doctor," " the parson," "the squire," &c, the particular applica- 
 tion of which general terms is settled, as it were, by a common un- 
 derstanding among the parties; since each of the individuals thus 
 honourably distinguished has his little sphere of celebrity. " Plurima 
 ejusdem farina " (says Viger) "ubique obvia." 
 
 P °t si -iL ve ^8. * ^ ave before observed that the Numerals may be employed 
 
 as nouns substantive, as pronouns substantive, or as pronouns ad- 
 jective; but the numeral one, when used as a pronoun adjective, 
 
CHAP. X.J OF ARTICLES. 167 
 
 approaches in signification so nearly to a positive article, that in lan- 
 guages which have no such article, it supplies the vacant place ; and 
 in other languages the positive article is the numeral itself, only 
 varied, and most commonly abbreviated, in pronunciation. In French, 
 the numeral un, " one," is spelt in the same way as the article un, 
 " a," or " an," but in the latter it is pronounced more slightly. In 
 English the word has been not only abbreviated in point of quantity, 
 but changed in articulation, from "one" to "a." The mental opera- 
 tion, however, is nearly the same in both instances. The conception 
 of one is expressed by the article a, not in opposition to that of two, 
 three, or any other conception of number, but as distinguished from 
 all the other individuals of the same class. In the Scottish dialect, 
 ane was retained as an article to a late period ; thus Nicol BuRisrE, in 
 his "Disputation," A. D. 1581, says, " Tertullian provis, that Christ 
 had ane treu body, and treu blude." And on the other hand, in the 
 old English, the numeral pronoun one was sometimes abbreviated to 
 o, as we read in Chaucer — 
 
 Sithe thus of two contraries is o lore ; 
 and so in the more ancient MS. Poem of the Man in the Moon — 
 
 He hath his o foot his other to foren ; 
 
 but it was still accented as a separate word ; whereas the article a 
 (as was before observed of the other article the) is passed over hastily 
 in pronunciation, as a mere prefix to the general term, which it serves 
 to individualize. Again, the numeral one (like the relative that) is 
 capable of being used alone, which the article a or an is not. We 
 may say, "one seeks fame, another riches, and a third, the wisest of 
 the three, content ; " but if we use the article, we must add its sub- 
 stantive, as "a man should seek content, rather than fame, or riches." 
 
 309. It is unnecessary to enter into those distinctions of the article, other dis- 
 which do not coincide with the definition above given of this part of 
 speech. Such is the distinction often found in the Greek gramma- 
 rians between the prepositive and subjunctive articles. The preposi- 
 tive, viz. 6, ?;, ro, is what I have called the relative article : the sub- 
 junctive, viz. oc, ?/, 6, is what I have called the subjunctive pronoun. 
 The latter, it is manifest, has no effect whatever in individualizing a 
 general term ; because it is only employed in a dependent sentence, 
 with reference to a term which must have been individualized in the 
 prior or leading sentence. The learned Hickes, in that valuable work 
 the Thesaurus linguarum Septentrionalium,, suggests that the Anglo- 
 Saxon sum, which answers nearly to the Latin quidam, should be 
 considered as an indefinite article. It appears to me rather to belong 
 to the class of pronouns ; yet in this and some other instances, the 
 two classes of words approach very nearly together, 
 And thin partitions do their bounds divide. 
 
 tmctions. 
 
( 168 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 OF PREPOSITIONS. 
 
 Connectives. 310. From the consideration of the Article, which Harris ranks 
 among the Definitives, I proceed to the Prepositions and Conjunctions, 
 which together form his class of Connectives. His reasons for adopt- 
 ing such a class are these. As in nature a substantive coalesces at 
 once with its attribute, an action with its agent, a passion with its 
 patient, and even a primary attribute with a secondary, so in gram- 
 mar, the substantive may coalesce at once with its adjective, as "a 
 wise man," a "fierce lion;" the verb transitive may coalesce at once 
 with its nominative and accusative, as " Alexander vanquished 
 Darius ; " and the adverb with the verb or adjective which it modi- 
 fies, as "he fought bravely" "he was completely victorious." But 
 when it is necessary to make any other union of conceptions, it can 
 only be done either by a combination of words ; by a change in the 
 word which requires to be modified; or by a separate word, which, 
 as it serves to connect the others, may be called a connective. Omit- 
 ting for the present the two first methods, let us observe how connec- 
 tives may be used. If in addition to the assertion that Alexander 
 vanquished Darius, I wish to assert that he also vanquished Porus, I 
 can effect this purpose by the connective " and," as " Alexander van- 
 quished Darius and Porus." If I wish to state the motive of Alex- 
 ander's fighting, I may say " he fought for fame." The word " and" 
 is commonly called a conjunction ; the word "for," a preposition: 
 and it is true that they are both employed to connect words which 
 would otherwise remain unconnected ; but there is this important dif- 
 ference between them — the conjunction connects, and does nothing 
 more ; the preposition introduces a further conception, namely that of 
 the particular relation in which the connected conceptions stand to 
 each other. In the example given, I do not merely connect, in the 
 mind of the hearer, the conceptions of Alexander, or of fighting, with 
 the conception of fame ; for they would be equally connected if fame 
 had been the unexpected and unthought-of consequence of his fighting ; 
 but I show that fame stood towards the action in the particular rela- 
 tion of a motive. I therefore consider that the word which thus shows 
 a distinct relation between two conceptions may be justly deemed a 
 separate part of speech. 
 
 Preposition. 31 1. This part of speech has been called a Preposition, because in 
 the Greek and Latin languages the words so employed were com 
 monly (though with some exceptions) proeposita, placed immediately 
 
CHAP. XI.] OF PREPOSITIONS. 169 
 
 before the substantives to which they referred. In those languages, 
 too, the words in question were subject to few variations in point of 
 form. These circumstances, though merely accidental, were unfor- 
 tunately selected by some grammarians as essential properties of the 
 part of speech under consideration ; and hence originated the well- 
 known definition, Proepositio est pars orationis invariabilis, quce prcepo- 
 nitur aliis dictionibus. The Greek grammarians, whom Harris followed, 
 ranked both the preposition and conjunction under the common head 
 of 1iVvhea/j.og, or the connective; and the Stoics, adding this cir- 
 cumstance to the ordinary position of the preposition in a sentence, 
 called this part of speech SvvfcafioQ UpoderLKog, the "prepositive 
 connective." Another accidental peculiarity of most of the words 
 which were used as prepositions in Greek and Latin, as well as in 
 some modern languages, was that their original and peculiar meaning 
 had, in process of time, become obscure ; and from hence some persons 
 were led to think that these words had no signification of their own. 
 The learned Harris gives the following definition, " Apreposition is a 
 part of speech devoid itself of signification, but so formed as to unite two 
 words that are significant, and that refuse to coalesce or unite of them- 
 selves." Campanella also says of the preposition, Per se non significat ; 
 and Hoogeveen says, " Per seposita et solitaria nihil significat. " Under 
 the same impression, the Port Eoyal grammarians say, " On a eu 
 recours, dans toutes les langues, a une autre invention, qui a ete dHnventer 
 depetits mots pour etre mis avant lesnoms, ce qui les a fait appeller pre- 
 positions." And M. de Brosses says, " Je rfai pas trouve quil fut 
 possible oVassigner la cause de leur origine ; tellement que fen crois la 
 formation purement arbitraire." 
 
 312. Now in all this there was much inaccuracy of reasoning, as Errors 
 applied to Universal Grammar. The position of this sort of words in 
 a sentence, had the fact been so in all known languages, must have 
 been owing to accidental causes ; but the fact is otherwise. Even 
 in Latin the preposition tenus was always placed after the noun which 
 it governed ; so Piautus uses erga after a pronoun, as in mederga, for 
 erg a me ; and cum is employed in like manner in the common ex- 
 pressions mecum, tecum, nobiscum, vobiscum. These and other examples 
 of a like kind induced some authors to make a class of postpositive 
 prepositions. " Dantur etiam," says Caramuel, " Postpositiones, 
 quse proepositiones postpositivoe solent dici ; " but I shall elsewhere 
 show that there are languages in which all the prepositions, so to 
 speak, are postpositive. Some writers, who for this and similar 
 reasons reject the word preposition, have adopted in its stead that of 
 adnomen, adnoun ; but as their example has been seldom followed, 
 and as it is my object to change as little as possible received modes 
 of expression, I shall adhere to the ordinary grammatical term, pre- 
 position, only reminding the reader that it is not to be taken as 
 expressing an essential property of the part of speech in question. 
 That prepositions are indeclinable may be the case in most languages, 
 
 rejected. 
 
Definition. 
 
 Examples. 
 
 Sentence 
 complex. 
 
 170 OF PREPOSITIONS. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 but is certainly no necessary part of their definition. That they sig- 
 nify nothing of themselves, if it were true in any degree, would be 
 only part of their history, and would throw no light whatever on the 
 grammatical principles which regulate their use. It is not surprising 
 that Mr. Tooke should ridicule these postpositive prepositions, and 
 nonsignificant words which communicate signification to other words ; 
 but unfortunately he only substitutes worse errors of his own, when 
 he asserts that prepositions are always names of real objects, and do 
 not show different operations of the mind. 
 
 313. The real character and office of the preposition have been 
 stated with a nearer approach to accuracy by Bishop Wilkins and 
 Vossius ; but neither of them seems to have given a full and satis- 
 factory definition of this part of speech. Wilkins says, " Prepositions 
 are such particles whose proper office it is to join integral with integral 
 on the same side of the copula, signifying some respect of cause, place, 
 time, or other circumstance, either positively or privatively." Vossius 
 says, Prcepositio est vox per quam adjungitur verbo nomen, locum, 
 tempus, aut caussam significans, seu positive seu privative." It 
 suited Wilkins's scheme of universal grammar to call the preposition 
 a particle ; but however appropriate this may be to a theoretical view 
 of language, such as it never did, and probably never will exist, it is 
 inconsistent with those philosophical principles on which the actual 
 use of speech among men depends ; neither is it material on which side 
 of the copula a preposition may be placed by the idiom of any par- 
 ticular language. On the other hand, as Wilkins includes under the 
 term integral both the noun and the verb, he is in this respect more 
 accurate than Vossius, for the preposition does not merely join a noun 
 to a verb, but sometimes to another noun. I therefore, with that 
 diffidence which becomes all persons who endeavour in any degree to 
 clear the path of science, shall propose the following definition : — 
 A preposition is a part of speech employed in a complex sentence, and 
 serving to express the relation in which the conception named by a noun 
 substantive stands to that named by another noun substantive, or asserted 
 by a verb. 
 
 314. Thus, if I say, " he hired a house with a garden," " Solomon 
 was the son of David," the words with and of are prepositions, the 
 former expressing the relation of contiguity between the substantives 
 " house" and " garden," and the latter expressing the relation of filial 
 descent between the substantives " son " and " David." Again, if 
 I say, " he spoke concerning the law," " he marched from Capua to 
 Kome," the words concerning, from, and to are prepositions, the first 
 expressing the relation of subjectivity in which the noun " law" stands 
 to the verb " spoke," and the two others expressing the different rela- 
 tions of locality in which the nouns "Capua" and "Rome" stand to 
 the verb " marched." 
 
 315. In developing the above definition, I first observe that the 
 sentence in which a preposition is employed must be a complex one : 
 
CHAP. XI.] OF PREPOSITIONS. 171 
 
 and this is evident ; for, in addition to the assertion of a connection 
 between a subject and its attribute (which together forms a simple 
 sentence, as " John walks," or " John is walking"), the preposition 
 expresses a conception of relation, which conception, if added to the 
 attribute and assertion in the verb, forms another simple sentence. 
 If I say, " John walks before Peter," I, in effect, make two assertions, 
 first, that John is walking, and, secondly, that the walking is before 
 Peter. In the language of lawyers, I present two issues ; for it may 
 be admitted that John walks, and denied that the walking is he/ore 
 Peter ; and this latter may chance to become an important question 
 affecting rights not only of precedence and station in society, but also 
 of property, and not only between individuals or families, but between 
 nations. In the secondary question, the relation of locality is ex- 
 pressed by the preposition before, which is necessary to connect the 
 assertion "walks" with the name "Peter;" for if it were omitted, 
 and I should say, " John walks Peter," the sentence would be unin- 
 telligible. In like manner, if the conception of relation be added to 
 one of two connected substantives, as " Solomon was the son of 
 David," the sentence involves two assertions, viz., that Solomon stood 
 in the relation of a son, and that that relation connected him with 
 David; and the word expressing the connection is the preposition 
 " of." 
 
 316. It follows, from the nature of connectives, as stated by Verb neuter. 
 Mr. Harris, that where a verb is neuter it may be connected imme- 
 diately with a following substantive by means of a preposition. Thus 
 
 the neuter verb " walks" is immediately connected with the following 
 substantive "Peter" by means of the preposition "before;" but if 
 the verb be transitive it cannot be immediately connected with a 
 substantive by means of a preposition, but must first be followed by 
 its proper accusative, that is to say, by the substantive expressing the 
 recipient of the action, ex. gr. : — 
 
 Now with strong pray'r, and now with stern reproach, 
 He stirs their valour. 
 
 Here the sense would have been wholly lost if the accusative " valour" 
 had been omitted : and the same rule applies where the relation is 
 marked by an inflection of the substantive, as in the original of the 
 passage just quoted — 
 
 Nunc prece, nunc verbis virtutem accendit amaris, * 
 
 where the ablatives prece and verbis amaris show the relation of 
 instrumentality, in which the conceptions expressed by them stand to 
 the verb accendit ; but those ablatives would have been unmeaning 
 had not the verb been followed by its proper accusative, virtutem. 
 
 317. In languages which admit of compounding a verb with a pre- compound 
 position, there may be differences of idiom. The verb, if neuter, verb ' 
 
 * Virg. Mn. 10, 368. 
 
Relation. 
 
 Its founda- 
 tion. 
 
 172 OF PREPOSITIONS. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 usually assumes a transitive character, as when Satan, who is described 
 as forcing his way into Paradise, 
 
 at one slight bound, high overleaped all hound. * 
 
 If the verb be transitive, then (according to the idiom of the language) 
 the related substantive may be either inflected in accordance with the 
 preposition in the verb or else accompanied with a separate pre- 
 position. When inflected, it adopts a case which is said by gram- 
 marians to be governed by the preposition in composition, as — 
 
 Nam tibi Thymbre caput Evandrius ahstulit ensis ; f 
 where the preposition abs (though governing an ablative when alone) 
 may be said, as forming part of the verb abstulit, to govern the dative 
 tibi ; and where both the preposition and the dative inflection express 
 the relation of objectivity, in which the person (Thymbrus) stood to 
 the act signified by the verb abstulit and its accusative caput, as if the 
 phrase had been " abstulit caput abs te." 
 
 318. The next point to be considered in the definition of a pre- 
 position above given is the nature of the relations which it serves to 
 express. Now, Relation, which is the fourth of the logical predica- 
 ments, supposes three things, the subject, or thing related, the object, 
 or correlative, and the relation itself, or circumstance existing in the 
 subject by means of which it is related to the object, and which 
 logicians call the foundation. When we say, " John is before Peter," 
 " John" is the subject, "Peter" is the correlative, and "before" is 
 the foundation, or, as I have been accustomed to speak, the concep- 
 tion of a particular relation, expressed prepositionally. 
 
 319. It is manifest, that the circumstance, whatever it be, that 
 forms the foundation of a logical relation, or (which is the same 
 thing) that constitutes (when expressed in language together with its 
 subject and object) a preposition, may either be common to the two 
 terms (as they are called) of the relation, or it may belong to one of 
 them exclusively. If I say, " John is with Peter," the relation ex- 
 pressed by the preposition with belongs equally to Peter and to John ; 
 but if I say John is before Peter, the relation expressed by the pre- 
 position before belongs exclusively to John. In the first case it is 
 perfectly indifferent whether I say " John is with Peter," or " Peter 
 is with John ; " it is perfectly indifferent which I make the subject 
 and which the object of the relation : but in the other case, if I were 
 to say " Peter is before John," I should not only vary the assertion, 
 but I should directly contradict it. Still the foundation of the rela- 
 tion would be the same ; for, as a great philologist has observed, 
 " at the bottom of every preposition, in its original sense, there exists 
 a relation between two opposite conceptions."! Thus before implies 
 behind, and over implies under. We may illustrate this with the 
 trivial comparison of two children playing at see-saw. If John and 
 
 * Milton, P. L. 4, 181. f Virg. Mn. 10, 394. 
 
 I Bopp, Comp. Gram. 1. 377. 
 
CHAP. XI.] OF PREPOSITIONS. 173 
 
 Peter be equally balanced at the opposite ends of a plank, John is 
 ley el with Peter, and Peter is level with John, and the plank is the 
 measure or standard of the level ; but if John be lighter than Peter, 
 John at once rises above Peter, and Peter sinks below John, and the 
 same plank measures the elevation of one and the depression of the 
 other. What the supposed plank is to the boys, the preposition is 
 to the substantives related; and hence we may easily explain not 
 only certain diversities in the idioms of different languages, but some 
 apparent contradictions in the same idiom. Thus Mr. Tooke makes 
 the following just observation on the Dutch preposition van : — " The 
 Dutch," says he, " are supposed to use van in two meanings, because, 
 it supplies indifferently the places both of our of and from. Notwith- 
 standing which, van has always one and the same single meaning. 
 And its use, both for of and from, is to be explained by its different 
 apposition. When it supplies the place of from, van is put in apposi- 
 tion to the same term to which from is put in apposition. But when 
 it supplies the place of of, it is not put in apposition to the same 
 term to which of is put in apposition, but to its correlative. The 
 same observation may be made on the prepositions at and to, which 
 in correct modern English express different relations of place, though 
 they both answer to the Latin ad, the French a, and the German zu, 
 e. gr. : " Verres ad Messanam venit," Verres came to Messina; 
 " Mihi quoque est ad portum negotium," I also have business at the 
 port : " II reste a la maison ;" " II est alle a la campagne ; " — " He 
 remains at home;" "He is gone to the country:" " Komm zu 
 mir," Come to me;" " zu Windsor," at Windsor. In Anglo-Saxon, 
 oet, at, was also used where we employ from ; as " animath that pund 
 cet him,"* take the talent from him, In Old English, we find it 
 employed where we should use to — 
 
 The sext maister rase vp onane. 
 Sir, he said, if thi will were, 
 Tak thi son to me, at lere.f 
 
 i. e., Put thy son to me to learn, " ad discendum." And still in the 
 Devonshire dialect, we hear " he lives to Exmouth" for " at Ex- 
 mouth." 
 
 320. Nor is it only the different use of prepositions in the same Apparent 
 or different languages which is thus to be explained, but even apparent tfon?^' " 
 contradictions. The prepositions for and after are of directly contrary 
 origin and signification, being (as will hereafter be fully shown) the 
 same as the words fore and aft. Nevertheless we say, " to seek for 
 that winch is lost," and " to seek after that which is lost." The 
 thing sought is considered as before the mind of the seeker, and con- 
 sequently the seeker is considered as after, or behind the thing 
 sought ; when, therefore, we use the word before, we specify the 
 relation of which the thing sought is the subject ; but when we use 
 
 * Matt. c. 25, v. 28. f Romance of the Seuyn Sages. 
 
mind. 
 
 174 OF PREPOSITIONS. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 the word after, we specify a relation of which the subject is the 
 seeker : or, to use Mr. Tooke's phraseology, we put before in apposi- 
 tion with the thing sought, and after in apposition with the seeker. 
 From this statement it appears that the subject of the relation specified 
 may or may not be the logical subject of the preposition enunciated in 
 the sentence. In the sentences, " John seeks for Peter," and " John 
 seeks after Peter," John is the logical subject ; but the former sen- 
 tence involves the expression of a relation of which Peter is the 
 subject, the latter of one the subject of which is John. The relation 
 of foreness exists in Peter ; the relation of afterness exists in John. 
 
 An act of the 321. M. Condillac says, as we haye seen, that the relation 
 between two sensations is not a direct sensation; and thence he 
 infers that a relation cannot be expressed in our mind, unless by an 
 artificial sign.* What he means by " expressed in our mind" I do 
 not pretend to understand ; but he is certainly right in saying, that a 
 relation is not a direct sensation, for it is no sensation at all. " Every 
 kind of relation," as Lord Monboddo justly observes, " is a pure idea 
 of intellect, which can never be apprehended by sense :" and when 
 Mr. Houne Tooke denies this proposition, he shows strange ignorance 
 of the human mind. Sense, taking that term in its widest accepta- 
 tion, can only apprehend an external object ; it can apprehend the 
 thing which is before another, or the thing before which another is : 
 but the relation of place, time, order, causation, or the like, which we 
 express by the word before, is discerned not by a simple operation of 
 sense, but by means of an exercise of our comparing and judging 
 faculties. It is most extraordinary that Tooke, who asserts uni- 
 versally that a prepositions are the names of real objects" should say 
 of the preposition for, " I believe it to be no other than the Gothic 
 substantive fairina, cause." What real object is Cause ? How is 
 causation to be apprehended by sense ? That we have a conception 
 of cause is certain ; but it is equally certain that we come at it by 
 means of our mind, and that it is in truth " a pure idea of intellect/ 
 which sense alone never did and never can give. 
 
 Classification, 322. To suppose that the prepositions necessary to any language 
 could be enumerated a priori would certainly be absurd. Tooke has 
 ridiculed the grammarians who have attempted to enumerate them, as 
 matter of fact and history. It has been said, that the Greeks had 
 eighteen prepositions, the Latins, forty-nine; and the French (ac- 
 cording to different authors) thirty-two, forty-eight, and seventy-five. 
 It is certainly possible to ascertain what words have been used as pre- 
 positions in a dead language ; but in a living language it is quite 
 impracticable to determine how many should be so used; for every 
 day may enhance their number, by new combinations of thought and 
 expression. A preposition is not like a piece of money stamped to 
 pass for a certain sum, and which cannot change its denomination or 
 value. It is a word to which a transient function is assigned, and 
 * Supra, s. 55. 
 
CHAP. XI. j OF PREPOSITIONS. 175 
 
 which, as soon as it has discharged that office, becomes available 
 again for its former purposes, as a noun, verb, or other part of speech. 
 But although it be not possible to enumerate prepositions, yet they 
 may be subjected to a general classification, according to the great 
 distinctions of relation in human conceptions. M. Cour De Gebelin 
 has attempted something of this kind, and Bishop Wilkins has also 
 given an arrangement of thirty-six prepositions, " which," he says, 
 " may, with much less equivocalness than is found in instituted lan- 
 guages, suffice to express those various respects, which are to be 
 signified by this kind of particle." It may be doubted whether 
 either of these schemes be sufficiently comprehensive, or perfectly 
 philosophical. Prepositions must be classed, if at all, by their signi- 
 fication, according as the relation which they express is of a corporeal 
 or mental nature. 
 
 323. It has been already seen that the relation of attribute to sub- Corporeal, 
 stance, that of secondary attribute to primary, and that of action to 
 
 the agent doing and the object suffering the act, are sufficiently 
 shown by the words expressing the related conceptions, without the 
 need of any connecting link : and that all other relations require a 
 separate word or words to connect the subject and object of relation. 
 For the sake of distinction, I shall call relations of the former kind 
 primary, and those of the latter secondary. The secondary, again, 
 are either corporeal or mental. In considering them grammatically, I 
 will notice first the nature of the relations in question, and then the 
 different modes of expressing them. The corporeal demand our first 
 attention ; for as in the opening of our faculties the earliest concep- 
 tions which we form are those of bodily existence, so the earliest 
 relations which we perceive are those of bodily substance. But 
 bodily substances exist only in place and time; relations of place 
 and time therefore are the earliest of which we become conscious : 
 and of these (as far as we can speak with certainty on so obscure a 
 subject) we may not unreasonably believe the relations of place to be 
 first perceived by the infant mind ; inasmuch as they originate in 
 mere present Sensation, whereas the very conception of Time neces- 
 sarily involves also Memory of the past and Imagination of the future. 
 
 324. By the word Place, I mean a portion of that space which to Place, 
 our finite apprehension appears to be infinitely extended in the three 
 several dimensions of Length, Breadth, and Depth ; and in which all 
 bodies either move or are at rest. The place of a body may be con- 
 templated by the mind with more or less extent of limits. Thus I 
 may say, that a student is at his desk, or at his rooms, or at his 
 college, or at the university ; that he has just risen from or is going to 
 
 his desk ; or is coming from or going to his rooms, or his college, 
 or the university. In short, we may illustrate the conceptions of 
 place as to its limits, by the same diagrams which were applied in 
 paragraph 281 to illustrate those of time; considering the place to 
 which the relation applies either as the mere point B of the angle 
 
176 OF PREPOSITIONS. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 A B C in the first diagram, or as the whole or any part of the seg- 
 ment A B C in the second. Relations of place are either positive or 
 comparative. The positive either imply rest, as at; or motion, as 
 from and to ; and in forming these conceptions we contemplate a 
 single body : for instance, the sun, which we may regard as issuing 
 from the east, blazing at the meridian, or declining to the west. The 
 comparative are formed when we contemplate the position or move- 
 ment of one or more bodies with reference to that of one or more 
 others. Hence prepositions of place have been ingeniously illus- 
 trated by a sort of diagram in which a central human figure is alter- 
 nately the subject and object of relation ; and lines drawn from it in 
 different directions indicate the relations of place which it bears to 
 various other bodies over and under it, before, behind, and beside it, 
 &c. &c. It is manifest that the relations of place, both positive and 
 comparative, may admit of numerous modifications; as I maybe near 
 a place though not at it ; or going toward thought not to it ; so one 
 object, though not directly over another, may be above it ; or though 
 not directly under, may be below it. Again, one body may be moving 
 along another, or around it, or about it, or standing or moving with 
 it, or passing through it, or between two, or among several: it may 
 be in or out of a definite space, beyond a certain point, on this or that 
 side of it, or against it. Various languages have brought into com- 
 mon use, as prepositions, words expressing still more specific rela- 
 tions of place ; as the French chez in " chez moi " at my house, the 
 English aboard in " aboard ship;" and it is manifestly impossible to 
 lay down rules beforehand, either extending or limiting the number 
 of words, which may be so employed. 
 
 Time. 325. Though the relations of place seem, on a careful observation 
 
 of the development of our faculties, to be of a more simple nature than 
 those of Time, yet there is always either a striking analogy, or an exact 
 coincidence between relations of these two classes. At any given mo- 
 ment of time, a given body must necessarily be at some certain point of 
 space : and if it has moved, or is to move, the motion must he from 
 some instant of time to some other instant of time, as well as from some 
 point of space to some other point of space. Indeed, space is our only 
 measure of time. Ages, years, days, minutes, seconds are measured by 
 the space, which the earth passes over in its equal and unremitting 
 course. At the instant of my uttering a syllable the earth is at a 
 certain point in its orbit ; before that instant the same point was be- 
 fore the globe ; after the instant of utterance, the point first taken as 
 a term of measurement will have fallen behind (that is, after) the 
 globe : and thus three instants of time are found exactly to coincide 
 with three points of space, and are therefore marked by the same pre- 
 positions, " at," " before," and " after." By a less strict analogy, a 
 man is said to be beyond his time, to be near the appointed time, 
 &c. &c. 
 
 Mental. 326. The secondary mental relations between our conceptions are 
 
CKAP. XI.] OF PREPOSITIONS. 177 
 
 numerous. It may suffice to mention the relation of cause to effect, 
 of means to end, genus to species, and whole to part : and to re- 
 mark that the conceptions, to which these relations apply, may be 
 corporeal, mental, or spiritual. The slightest knowledge of human 
 nature will convince us that mankind do not become aware of any 
 mental relations till long after the relations of place and time have 
 been familiar to them. Yet between the corporeal and mental rela- 
 tions, there will be found to exist the same sort of coincidence or 
 analogy, as has been already observed between the relations of place 
 and time. First, let us consider the relation of cause, as applied to a 
 corporeal effect, in the ordinary instance of a billiard ball set in 
 motion, on being struck by a mace. Here the motion begins from a 
 certain point of space, and from a certain instant of time; what more 
 natural than to say that the motion results, as an effect, from the 
 stroke, as a cause ? Again, considering the motion as an end pro- 
 duced by some instrument as the means, we perceive that when the 
 motion began, the body close by the ball was the mace : it is natural 
 then to infer that the motion was produced by the mace as an instru- 
 ment. Let us next apply the relation of cause to a mental effect — for 
 instance, learning. As this effect began to be produced from the 
 time that the learner applied himself to study, the reasonable infer- 
 ence is that the learning resulted from study, as a cause. Or let us 
 consider the relation of cause as applied to a spiritual effect. " Every 
 good gift " (says St. James) " and every perfect gift is from above, 
 and cometh down from the Father of lights." * Hence we may say, 
 that as corporeal motion proceeds from a corporeal cause, and as the 
 mental acquisition of learning proceeds from a mental cause, so all 
 spiritual excellence proceeds from a spiritual cause, namely, God: 
 and thus have I traced the analogies between the secondary relations, 
 corporeal and mental, in their several gradations. 
 
 327. There are three modes of expressing these secondary rela- Expression 
 tions ; first by a combination of words, secondly by a separate word, y P *' 
 and thirdly by a variation in the form of a word. The separate 
 words used for this purpose are those called prepositions ; but to un- 
 derstand them fully we must compare their use with the two other 
 modes. I shall begin with an example of the first mode : — 
 
 Mark what radiant state she spreads 
 In circle round her shining thione, 
 Sitting like a goddess bright 
 In the center of her light, f 
 
 Here the corporeal relation of place is set forth by two combinations 
 cf words, viz., " in circle round," and " in the centre of." Again, in the 
 letter which Hotspur reads—" I could be well contented to be there 
 in respect of the love I bear your house," J the mental relation of 
 cause is set forth by a combination of the words " in respect of." 
 
 * St. James, i. 17. f Milton, Arcades. % Shaksp., Hen. IV. Part i. 
 
 2, K 
 
178 OF PREPOSITIONS. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 The love which the writer alleges himself to bear to the house 
 of Percy is the cause of the contentment which he says he might 
 feel in repairing to the proposed meeting of the insurgents. Now, 
 such a combination of words constitutes a phrase, or clause, in 
 a complex sentence, introduced solely to express some secondary 
 relation of a substantive to a verb, or to another substantive. 
 As these phrases serve the purpose of prepositions, they may be 
 termed prepositional phrases; and their place may for the most "part 
 be supplied by prepositions in the same, or a different language. 
 Thus, for the phrases " in circle round " and " in the center 
 of," we may substitute (though less poetically) the prepositions 
 <l around" and " amidst:" and for the phrase " in respect of," we 
 may substitute in English the preposition " for," and in Latin the 
 preposition propter. 
 "and, 328. Prepositional phrases may be further distinguished as sub- 
 
 adjectival. s tantival or adjectival, according as the word expressing the relation 
 is in the form of a substantive or adjective. It is true that these 
 combinations are merely idiomatical, and will be noticed more parti- 
 cularly hereafter ; yet it may be proper here to illustrate my meaning 
 by a few short examples. 
 
 i. Under the head of substantival phrases, we may place the above- 
 mentioned combinations, in which the relations are expressed by the 
 substantives " circles," " centre," and " respect." So the Greek 
 phrase npog f$iav e/xou, answers to the English phrase " in spite of 
 me," and to the Italian phrase a mio mal grado ; the words fiia, 
 spite, and grado, being all substantives. 
 
 ii. Those prepositional phrases may be called adjectival, in which 
 the relations are expressed by words elsewhere used as adjectives, 
 such as " contrary to," " in contrar," " en contre " " counter to," &c. 
 Milton, in his Essay on the Reason of Church Government" says, " If 
 the course of judicature to a political censorship seem either tedious 
 or too contentious, much more may it to the discipline of the church, 
 whose definitive decrees are to be speedy, but the execution of rigour 
 slow, contrary to what in legal proceedings is most usual." We find 
 the adjective contrar used prepositionally in the Scottish acts of par- 
 liament, in the phrase " in contrar the command." In old French 
 there was also the prepositional phrase en contre, which now exists 
 only as a substantive, signifying an adventure : nor is the verb en- 
 contre at present in use, though the substantive rencontre, and the 
 verb rencontre both are so ; and though in English we retain encounter 
 and rencounter, both as substantives and as verbs. It is probably 
 from rencounter that we originally took the expression of running 
 counter to ; as in Locke — 
 
 He thinks it brave at his first setting out to signalize himself in 
 running counter to all the rules of virtue. 
 
 Where, as the words counter to, perform the function of a prepo- 
 
CHAP. XI.] OF PREPOSITIONS. 179 
 
 sition, they may justly be described as a prepositional phrase, of the 
 adjectival class. 
 
 329. The next mode of expressing secondary relations is by a sepa- Expression by 
 rate word. Some prepositional phrases occurring frequently in con- ? re P° sltlons - 
 versation naturally lead to abbreviations and ellipses in their ex- 
 pression, and thus ultimately leave but a single word which consti- 
 tutes the part of speech called a Preposition. The words so retained 
 
 are those expressing the particular relation contemplated. They may 
 be divided into two classes, of w T hich the first continue to be used 
 with little or no difference of meaning in the same languages as nouns 
 substantive, nouns adjective, verbs, particles, or prepositions ; but, in 
 the second class, the original nouns or verbs, from which they are de- 
 rived, have become obsolete, or can only be traced by analogy and 
 the skilful comparison of kindred dialects. 
 
 330. Among words of the first class w T e have few substantives in Substantival, 
 modern English that are employed alone and without some small 
 inflection, as prepositions. Dryden, indeed, uses the substantive 
 
 cross in this manner : — 
 
 Betwixt the midst and these, the gods assign'd 
 
 Two habitable seats to human kind ; 
 
 And cross their limits cut a sloping way." * 
 
 But with the prefix, a, we have across, aboard, and some others. In 
 German, statt, which is our substantive stead, is used prepositionally 
 statt meiner, " instead of me :" and in a manner not very dissimilar 
 we use the Latin substantive vice, in the official notices of appoint- 
 ments to office ; as " X. Y. to be captain by purchase vice T. B. pro- 
 moted." In French the substantive gre is explained " bonne, tranche 
 volonte, qu'on a de faire quelque chose ;" as " il y est alle de son 
 gre, de son plein^re;" " ils ont contracte ensemble de gre a gre ;" 
 " il le fera bon gre, mal gre. Savoir gre is "to be satisfied with " a 
 person's conduct, to be obliged to him for it : lui savoir un gre infini, 
 " to be infinitely obliged to him." Thus, in a letter written by order 
 of the king of France, in 1814, to the author of certain political 
 works, it is said, " Sa majeste vous sachant un gre infini de la ma- 
 niere dont vous avez pris, dans des temps difficiles, la defense de ses 
 justes droits," &c, and this same substantive, with the adjective mal 
 prefixed to it, forms the preposition malgre, as in the old French 
 
 song- 
 
 Malgr€ la bataille, 
 Qu'on donne demain, 
 
 Ca, faisons ripaille, 
 Charmante Catin ! 
 
 331. We use many adjectives prepositionally, either without, or Adjectival. 
 
 * Has inter mediamque, duse mortalibus asgris 
 Munere concessae Divom, via seeta per ambas, 
 Obliquus qua se signorum verteret ordo." 
 
 Virg. Georg. i. 237. 
 N 2 
 
180 OF PREPOSITIONS. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 with the prefix a, ex. gr. round, as in " all friends round the Wrekin," 
 
 a phrase well known to Shropshire men. So — 
 
 merely to officiate light 
 
 Round this opacous earth, this punctual spot.* 
 
 But in modern usage around is the more prevalent form, as in the 
 song — 
 
 Ere around the huge oak which o'ershadows yon mill 
 The fond ivy had dared to entwine, f 
 
 The adjective near is used prepositionally both in its positive and 
 comparative degree : — 
 
 No grief did ever come so near thy heart. \ 
 
 He is not one jot nearer the end. § " 
 
 Verbal. 332. We have many verbs, which the generality of grammarians 
 
 admit to be occasionally used as prepositions : e. g., " save" and 
 " except." Dr. Johnson (by oversight, I presume) calls the word 
 save an adverb. Mr. Tooke, in his chapter on Prepositions, more 
 correctly mentions it thus : — 
 
 " Save. The imperative of the verb. This prepositive manner 
 of using the imperative of the verb to save afforded Chaucer's Somp- 
 nour no bad equivoque against his adversary the Friar : — 
 God save you all, Save this cursed Frere. 
 
 Here the construction is " Save (set aside or except) this Friar ; 
 and then I hope that God will save (deliver from evil) all the rest of 
 you." 
 
 So in the Squire's Tale, — 
 
 This strange Knight that came thus sodenly 
 All armed, sane his hedde. 
 
 That is, the Knight was entirely armed, but when you say entirely, 
 you must save (or except) his head. 
 
 The words " save and except " are often used synonymously in 
 many of our legal instruments : we shall not therefore be surprised 
 to find except reckoned by Dr. Johnson among prepositions — 
 
 " Except, preposit. [from the verb.] This word, long taken as 
 a preposition or conjunction, is originally the participle passive of the 
 verb, which, like most others, had for its participle two terminations, 
 except or excepted. All except one, is all, one excepted. Except may 
 be according to the Teutonic idiom, the imperative mood: all, ex- 
 cept one ; that is, all but one, which you must except." 
 
 " i. Exclusively of; without inclusion of. 
 
 Richard except, those, whom we fight against, 
 Had rather have us win than him they follow. 
 
 Shakspeare, Rich. III. 
 
 Participial. 333. Participles being merely adjectives, with the additional 
 
 * Milton, P. L. viii. 22. t Opera of The Fanner. 
 
 J Shakspeare. § Locke. 
 
 ox- 
 
CHAP. XI.] OF PREPOSITIONS. 181 
 
 pression of action superadded, we cannot be surprised to find them 
 used, as the pure adjectives have been shown to be, in performing the 
 function of a preposition. Such is the case with our participles 
 saving, barring, during, &c. In old Scottish statutes " saving " is 
 written saufande. Thus, in the act of 1455, we find " saufande the 
 poynts quhilks ar neidful for the conservacion of the treaty." So we 
 say in colloquial language " barring accidents." In the Scottish Act 
 of 1456, the participle belangande occurs with the same prepositional 
 construction. " As to the thirde artikill, belangande the sending to 
 France." In the Act of 1524 we meet with the expression " en- 
 during the time of his office ;" where, in modern English, we should 
 use during. In legal phraseology, the ablative absolute durante vita, 
 is rendered '■''for and during the term of his natural life ;" where, as 
 the word during and the word for are used with exactly the same 
 force in the sentence, it is plain, that if for be a preposition, during is 
 one also. It happens that our lexicographers have only acknowledged 
 those participles to be prepositions which are most frequently so em- 
 ployed ; such as touching and concerning, which are thus noticed by 
 Dr. Johnson : — 
 
 " Touching, prep. [This word is originally a participle of touchy 
 With respect, regard, or relation to." 
 
 Touching things which belong to discipline, the church hath au- 
 thority to make canons and decrees, even as we read in the apostles' 
 times it did. Hooker, book iii. 
 
 " Concerning, prep, [from concern : this word, originally a par- 
 ticiple, has before a noun the force of a preposition.] Relating to, with 
 relation to." 
 
 There is not anything more subject to errour, than the true judg- 
 ment concerning the power and forces of an estate. Bacon. 
 
 Many other participles, however, might be pointed out in various 
 languages, which are plainly used as prepositions, and some of them 
 so recognised by grammarians. Thus Cour De Gebelin ranks 
 among prepositions the present participles pendant, durant, touchant, 
 moyennant, nonobstant, suivant, and the past participles, attendu, vu, 
 and hormis. So we use pending, during, hanging, living, failing, con- 
 sidering, omitting, regarding, respecting, and anciently moiening. 
 At whose instigacion and stirring, I have me applied, moiening 
 the helpe of God, to reduce and translate it. B. Copland. 
 
 The participle hanging is used, in one of our earliest English 
 statutes, as we now use pending, and the French pendant ; and cor- 
 responding to the ablative absolute pendente lite. " The said accompt 
 to be ij or iij yere hanging," Stat. 1. Rich. III. c. 14. 
 
 334. Hitherto I have spoken of those single words used as pre- Less obvious 
 positions, and also as other parts of speech, in which the identity of 
 meaning is more or less obvious. There is no absolute line to be 
 drawn in matters of this kind between that which is discoverable at 
 first sight, or on a short reflection, and that which it requires some 
 
182 OF PREPOSITIONS. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 study to make out ; because the different capacities, and the different 
 experience, of different men, must influence the degrees in this scale. 
 But we may proceed by almost imperceptible degrees from that 
 which almost all men think clear and self evident, to that which 
 almost all will admit to be involved in obscurity, and yet the ana- 
 logical principle, discreetly used, will give us scarcely less confidence 
 in the latter than in the earlier stages of this progress, 
 with. 335. Following this clue, I come to the preposition with, which 
 
 will probably be deemed more obscure in its derivation than any of 
 the words hitherto examined. There are no less than three ety- 
 mologies, to which it has been thought necessary to resort, in order 
 to account for the different uses of this one -preposition : — 
 
 1. The Gothic verb withan, to bind, or join together. 
 
 2. The Gothic preposition withra, toward, or against. 
 
 3. The Anglo-Saxon verb wyrthan (or rather the Gothic 
 
 wisan), to be. 
 I am inclined to regard the first and second of these etymologies, 
 though at first sight so widely different in signification, as originally 
 the same. When any two visible objects are nearly connected, in 
 local situation, they must appear to be placed in apposition to each 
 other, if both be viewed from a distant point ; but if one be viewed 
 from the other, it will appear to be placed in opposition. Now, the 
 preposition with, both in Anglo-Saxon and in English, expresses these 
 different relations of apposition and opposition : it is therefore probable, 
 that the original radix of the word, (so far as these two significations 
 are concerned,) expressed the idea common to both, namely, the idea 
 of connection. To exemplify this observation, let us suppose that 
 John and Andrew are seen at the distance of half a mile by Peter ; 
 they appear to be close together, to be joined with, or bound to each 
 other ; but on approaching them he finds that there is a considerable 
 interval between them, and the one either stands opposite to the other, 
 or comes toward him, or stands against him resisting, or draws back 
 from him. Now all these conceptions of being joined with, standing 
 opposite to, coming toward, resisting, and drawing back from, with 
 others of a like kind, will be found to be expressed in different Teu- 
 tonic dialects by words obviously related to our preposition with. 
 This will appear more at large as we separately examine the above- 
 stated etymologies. 
 withan. 336. The idea of connection, or joining together, was expressed by 
 the Mseso-Gothic verb, withan, of which the past tense, gawath, 
 occurs in the following passage of the Codex Argenteus. Thata Goth 
 gawath, Manna ni skaidai, " What God hath joined together, let not 
 man put asunder." (St. Mark, x. 9.) Hence, as a particular kind 
 of weed is called bindweed, because it twists round and binds together 
 other plants ; so a particular kind of tree (the willow) was called the 
 with-tree, or withy-tiee (in old German, weide-haum, or wette-haum) ; 
 because its tender twigs were used to with, (that is, to bind together,) 
 
CHAP. XI.] OF PREPOSITIONS. 183 
 
 t 
 
 many objects in rustic economy. The twigs so used for binding were 
 also called withs, or wythes ; and a with or wythe was a term given to 
 anything that bound either the body or the mind. 
 Mortimer, in his Husbandly, speaks of the tree : — 
 
 Birch is of use for ox-yoaks, hoops, screws ; wythes for faggots. 
 Lord Bacon uses this word to signify the twig : — 
 
 An Irish rehel put up a petition, that he might he hanged in a with, 
 and not a halter ; because it had been so used with former rebels. 
 
 The two words with and halter are simply binder and holder ; but use, 
 it appears, had appropriated the former, to a binder made of willow 
 twigs ; and the latter, to a holder made of hemp. 
 
 King Charles employs the same word metaphorically : — 
 
 These cords and wythes will hold men's consciences, when force 
 attends and twists them. 
 
 In different Anglo-Saxon glossaries, we find withig, the willow ; 
 withthe, a hoop, or band ; cyneuiththe, the diadem, the king's band, or 
 " golden round," as Shakspeare calls it. 
 
 In an Alamannic glossary, " Ubi recensentur res pistrini atque 
 horrei," says Junius, " with exponitur torta? 
 
 " Danis quoque," says the same author, " widde est copula viminea; 
 potissimum tamen, ut videtur, copula ex salignis viminibus contexta, 
 contortave." 
 
 In Dutch, the willow is called wiede, wiide, weyde, wiie. 
 
 Our word icillow itself originally conveyed the same notion of bind- 
 ing ; it being derived from the Anglo-Saxon wilig, which came from 
 the verb wilan, as withig did from the verb withan ; and both withan 
 and wilan signified to bind. Wachter derives the German weide, 
 and Frankish wida, a willow, from the old verb wetten, to bind ; " Ab 
 usu, quern arbor officiosa praebet colonis et hortulanis in jungendis et 
 alligandis rebus ;" and he suggests, that the Latin vitis, a vine, is so 
 named from its binding round other trees. Weiden also he explains, 
 to bind, and weid, wied, wette, a bond. The Frankish languuid, is a 
 waggon-rope. Wette also signifies, metaphorically, the law, which 
 binds ; and this in Dutch is wet, whence wet-boek is a law-book ; wet- 
 steller, wetmaaker, wet-geever, a legislator ; wethouders, magistrates ; 
 wetgeleerde, a lawyer ; wetbreker, a lawbreaker ; wetloos, an outlaw ; 
 wettig, legitimate, &c. The verb wetten is not only to bind, but to 
 bind in wedlock "Oritur," says Wachter, "a wette, vinculum, 
 copula, ligamen, unde reliqua, tarn verba, quam substantiva, tanquam 
 ex matrice prodierunt." 
 
 From all these authorities we may safely conclude, that we have 
 ascertained the proper origin of our common preposition with, in the 
 sense of association, e. gr. : — 
 
 n all thy humours, whether grave or mellow, 
 
 'hou'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasing fellow ; 
 
 last so much wit and mirth, and spleen about thee, 
 
 'here is no living with thee, nor without thee. Taller. 
 
184 OF PREPOSITIONS. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 ii. It is obvious that in several of the other uses of this preposition, 
 which Dr. Johnson points out, it really expresses no more than the 
 same conception of joining or binding together, modified by the nature 
 of the objects spoken of. Such are the following: — " in company," 
 — " in partnership," — " in appendage," — "in mutual dealing," — for I 
 am joined with those with whom I am in company ; — I am bound to 
 one with whom I am in partnership; — a thing is joined to that of 
 which it is an appendage ; two persons, who mutually deal together, 
 are bound by the laws of honesty to each other ; and so of similar 
 cases. It is remarkable that Johnson himself gives the two following 
 senses of this preposition, in immediate succession. 
 
 4. On the side of; for — 
 
 •• madness of discourse ! 
 
 That cause sets up with, and against thyself. Shakspeare. 
 
 5. In opposition to ; in competition, or contest — 
 
 I do contest 
 
 As hotly and as nobly with thy love, 
 
 As ever against thy valour. Shakspeare. 
 
 vvithra. 337. This illustrates the transition before mentioned, from withan 
 to withra, i.e. apposition to opposition; and hence Johnson says, " With, 
 in composition, signifies opposition or privation." Instances of this 
 use of the word in modern English are, withdraw, withhold, and with- 
 stand. 
 
 Barbour uses withsay — 
 
 With richt or wrang it have would thay ; 
 And if anie would thame withsay, 
 Thay would sa do, that thay suld tine 
 Eyther land or lyfe, or live in pine. 
 
 This is in German widersagen : as in the old baptismal formula, 
 "Wider sag estu dem Teufel und alien seinen werhen?" "Dost thou 
 renounce the devil and all his works ?" And in this sense absagen is 
 also used. 
 
 It is observable that the modern German, which does not use with, 
 or any similar preposition in the sense of association, has wider to 
 signify opposition, both in the simple form, and in a great number of 
 compounds, — as wiederhalten, to resist ; widerlegen, to refute ; wider- 
 reden, to reply ; wider-sprechen, to contradict, &c. ; and so widerschein, 
 a reflected light ; widersinn, an absurdity ; widerschall, an echo, &c. 
 
 In the Anglo-Saxon, with and wither are both used in the sense of 
 opposition, or reflecting back from ; as withstandian, to resist ; with- 
 coren, wither-coren, cUrsed ; with-secyian, withersecyian, to contradict ; 
 with-loedan, to lead back ; with-scufian, to repel. In the laws of 
 Canute we find witersacan, apostates. In the old English laws we 
 have withernam, in the barbarous Latin of that day, withernamium, a 
 reseizure. This last word is said to have given an easy victory to an 
 English lawyer in Italy, at an epoch when it was the custom for 
 
CHAP. XI. J OF PREPOSITIONS. 185 
 
 scholars to offer public challenges for disputation on any given subject. 
 As the party who accepted the challenge had the choice of a subject, 
 our lawyer proposed, as his question, An averia capta in withernamio 
 replegiari possint ; to which his antagonist, as he did not understand 
 what withernamium meant, was unable to give any reply. 
 
 In the Icelandic, we find both vid and vidur signifying against. In 
 the Frankish, vid and with are " against," as with thenne Divvel, 
 " against the Devil." But in most of the other Teutonic dialects, 
 when the sense is contra, or retro, the letter r is found in the word. 
 In the Gothic of Ulfila withra signifies both toward and against, as 
 alia so baurgs usiddya withra Jaisu, " all the city went out toward 
 Jesus." Saei nist withra izwis, faur izwis ist ; " He that is not against 
 us, is for us :" and so in the compounds withrawairthan, " opposite," 
 " over against ;" withraidya, "he met;" withragamotyan, " to meet." 
 In the Frankish, uuidrunpiotan, is to write in reply. In the Alamannic, 
 uuidartragan, is to carry back. In the old Salic laws, widredo is a 
 repeater of his oath, from eid, an oath. In the Lombard laws, wider- 
 ooran is a manumitted slave. This last word is also written guiderbora, 
 as in the laws of Luitprand (circ. a.d. 720), " Si quis aldiam 
 alienam aut suam ad uxorem tollere volluerit, faciat earn guiderboram." 
 Another remarkable instance of the use of wider in composition, is hi 
 widrigildum, which some writers confound with wergeldum ; but 
 Eccardus accurately distinguishes these words, observing that the 
 latter properly signifies the price, ransom, or value of a man ; the 
 former, any composition by which a loss is paid back, or compensated. 
 Weregelt is well known to the old English and Scottish law ; (see 
 Fleta, and the Regiam Majestatem). Weregeltthef, according to Fleta, 
 is " Latro, qui redimi potest." Hence Somner derives wer-geld from 
 wer, a man, and gelt, price. On the other hand, Grotius (in the 
 preface to the Gothic writers) defines wedrigeldium " quod pro talione 
 datur ; " and this word is properly derived by Wendelinus from the 
 Teutonic weder contra, vicissim, and gelt, eestimatio. It is differently 
 written, widrigilth, widrigildum, guidrigild, wedrigildum, wedrigeldum, 
 widrigild. 
 
 Widrigilth secundum quod appretiatus fuerit. 
 
 Deer. Childeb. II. (a.d. 711.) 
 Suum widrigildum ornnino componat. 
 
 Deer. Ludov. II. (a.d. 879.) 
 
 Si stupri crimine detectae fuerit componat guidrigild suum. 
 
 Capitul. Arech. Princ. Benevent. 
 Juxta quod widrigild illius est. 
 
 Capit. Lotharii, Imp. (a.d. 824.) 
 
 338. Perhaps the most remarkable derivation from the word wither, Guerdon, 
 or wider, now remaining in our language, is guerdon ; and the more 
 so, as the English etymologists in general have entirely mistaken its 
 origin. 
 
 The English word guerdon is a mere adoption of the French 
 
186 OF PREPOSITIONS. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 guerdon, of which Menage thus speaks : — " Je croy qu'il vient de 
 werdung qui signifie pretii cestimatio, et dont les escrivains de la basse 
 Latinite ont fait aussi werdunia pour dire la mesrae chose. De 
 guerdon les Espagnols ont fait galardon, et les Italiens guiderdone." 
 Skinner cites this ; but prefers the derivation of guerdon by Mylitjs 
 from the Dutch weerderen, waerderen, aastimare, censere ; and* this from 
 weerd, waerd dignus, et weerde, valor, pretium. Junius cites the 
 French guerdon, Italin guiderdone, Spanish galardon, and Welsh 
 wherth; "quae omnia," says he, "valde affinia sunt Teutonico 
 vxerde weerdiie" What is meant by galardon being " valde affine," 
 to weerde, I cannot guess ; any more that I can tell how the Italians 
 formed guiderdone out of guerdon : and as to the base Latin werdunia, 
 I never happened to meet with that word. The real history of the 
 word guerdon, however, may, I apprehend, be very satisfactorily 
 traced, as follows : — 
 
 i. Widerdonum. This word is correctly explained by Du Cange, 
 " Vox ibrida, a widar Teutonico, contra, et donum Latino, munus." 
 This mixture of Teutonic participles with Latin substantives or verbs, 
 is a fact, which, properly considered, may cast some light on the true 
 principles of etymology. Thus we find our word miscreant to be 
 compounded of the Teutonic mis (our verb, to miss,^ and the Latin 
 credere : and the French have many such compounds, e. gr. mecompte, 
 meconnoitre, mecontent, mesaventure, mesoffrir, mesestimer, medire, me- 
 faire, &c. Widerdonum occurs in the Tabularium Casauriense, (a. d. 
 '876). 
 
 Quia tu dedisti mihi, pro memorata convenientia, widerdonum, 
 caballum unum et argentum solidos centum. 
 
 ii. Guiderdone, or guidardone. This is merely the word widerdonum 
 with the Italian articulation gui for m, as in guidrigild and guiderbora 
 above noticed, for widergild and widerbora. The Latin termination 
 um was universally changed into o by the elder Italians ; and in 
 modern writing it is softened still more into e ; whence we find in the 
 Vocabolario delta Crusca, guiderdone and guidardone, with their deriva- 
 tives, guiderdonare, guidardonare, guiderdonato, guiderdonatrice, guidar- 
 donatrice, guiderdonamento, guidardonamento, &c. 
 
 E come i falli meritan punizione, cosi i benefici meritan guiderdone. 
 
 Boccaccio, (circ. A.D. 1350.) 
 E per guidardone del vincitore apparecchio Ghirlande. Idem. 
 
 iii. Guizardonum. This is evidently a mere provincial corruption 
 of pronunciation from guidardonum. 
 
 Item quod nullum munus, guizardonum, vel xenia aliqua recipiet. 
 
 Statut. Massil. (circ. A.D. 1220. 
 
 iv. Guiardonum. 
 
 Non currant aliquse poena?, usurse, guiardona, vel expense. 
 
 Statut, Vercel. 
 
 This word is thus explained in an old glossary: — " Guiardonum, re- 
 
CHAP. XI.] OF PREPOSITIONS. 187 
 
 muneratio ; Ital. guidardone, nostris guerredon. (Vide Glossar. Pro 
 vine. Lat. ex cod. Reg. Paris, No. 7657.) 
 
 v. Guiardon, in the Provencal dialect, prsemium. 
 
 vi. Guerredon. The old French word above alluded to, which is 
 also found in the verbal form, guerredonner. 
 
 Se Dieu sauve le baron, 
 
 lis en auront bon guerredon. Roman D'Athis. 
 
 Voulons, pour ce, yceulx guerredonner, et poursuir de faveur especial. 
 
 Chart. Phil. VI. (a.d. 1330.) 
 
 vii. Guerdon, In the old French translation of the passage above- 
 cited from the Statutes of Marseilles, the words " Guizardonum vel 
 xenia," are rendered " guerdon, ou estrenne." 
 
 In English, guerdon is used to signify a just recompense either for 
 good or bad deeds. 
 
 He shall by thy revenging hand at once receive the just guerdon 
 of all his former villainies. Enolles, Hist. Turk. 
 
 Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise, 
 
 (That last infirmity of noble mind) 
 To scorn delights, and live laborious days ; 
 
 But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, 
 Comes the blind Fury, with th' abhorred sheers, 
 
 And slits the thin-spun life. Milton. 
 
 339. Having examined two derivations of our modern preposition Wyrthan. 
 with, I come to the third, which is thus stated by Mr. Horne Tooke. 
 
 " With is also sometimes the imperative of wyrthan, to be. Mr. 
 Tyrwhit, in his glossary, (art. But,) has observed truly, that ' by 
 and with are often synonymous.' They are always so, when with is 
 the imperative of wyrthan : for by is the imperative of beon, to be. 
 He has also in his glossary (art. With) said truly, that * with 
 meschance, with misadventure, with sorwe : 5316, 7797, 6916, 
 4410, 5890, 5922, are to be considered as parenthetical curses.' 
 For the literal meaning of those phrases is (not God yeve, but) be 
 mischance, be misadventure, be sorrow, to him or them, concerning 
 whom these words are spoken. But Mr. Tyrwhit is mistaken when 
 he supposes — 'with evil prefe, 5829; with harde grace, 7810; 
 with sory grace, 12810;' to have the same meaning; for in those 
 three instances, with is the imperative of imthan ; nor is any paren- 
 thetical curse or wish contained in either of those instances." 
 
 There is something ingenious in connecting with and wyrthan ; and 
 it was probably suggested to Mr. Tooke by the analogy which with- 
 out and with-in bear to the Scottish " but and ben ;" i. e. be-out and 
 be-in. The Anglo-Saxons also used with-jeondan, for be-yond ; and 
 indeed they employed the separate preposition with so loosely, as to 
 afford room for supposing that it was only equivalent to the general 
 expression of existence, be : for Hickes, in his Grammatica Anglo- 
 Saxonica, explains with by the Latin words, juxta, cum, contra, ad- 
 versus, pro, circa, circiter, erga, a, ab ; and one of his examples is 
 
188 OF PREPOSITIONS. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 remarkable, as using with for by in the sense of near to. " With tha 
 see Adriaticum, juxta mare Adriaticum." 
 
 Still it may be doubted whether the Anglo-Saxon wyrthan affords 
 the proper solution of this question ; since we do not find the r ever 
 introduced before the th into either the Anglo-Saxon or English pre- 
 position : in other words, we do not find wyrth used as a preposition 
 in Saxon, or worth in English ; and though worth is certainly used for 
 be in the parenthetical curse wo worth I and in the parenthetical bless- 
 ing well worth ! it is not quite so clear that with is thus used in the 
 expressions " with meschance, with misaventure, or with sorwe." 
 
 In the vision of Piers Plowman we have the verb worth, to be. In 
 Chaucer we have wo worth, and in Piers Plowman, well worth, and 
 much wo worth. 
 
 And said, Mercy, madam, your man shall I worth. 
 
 Piers Plowman. 
 
 Wo worth the faire gemme vertulesse ! 
 
 Wo worth that hearbe also that doth no bote ! 
 Wo worth the beauty that is routhlesse ! 
 
 Wo worth that might that trede ech under fote ! 
 
 Chaucer. 
 
 Much wo worth the man that misruleth his inwitte ! 
 
 And well worth Piers Plowman that pursueth God in his going ! 
 
 Piers Plowman. 
 
 The Anglo-Saxon wyrthan, wurthan, or weorthan, and the English 
 worth, are from the Gothic wairthan ; but perhaps the Anglo-Saxon 
 and English with, used synonymously with be, are rather from the 
 other Gothic verb substantive, wisan : for the different Teutonic tribes 
 used three verbs substantive, (as they are called,) viz. beon, wisan, and 
 wurthan ; of which we retain traces in the different tenses of our verb, 
 to be ; namely, be, was, and were. 
 other _ 340. These etymological disquisitions on the word with belong 
 
 TT /» T X 1 11 
 
 properly to the History of Language. I use them in this place 
 merely to illustrate the principles before stated, viz., first, that even 
 in the less obvious instances, words used as prepositions are significant 
 of certain relations between our conceptions corporeal, mental, or 
 spiritual ; and secondly, that though signifying the same relations as 
 when used in the form of nouns or verbs, their force and effect in the 
 construction of a sentence are so different as justly to entitle them to 
 the character of a separate part of speech. It will be seen in another 
 part of this work, that the same inference is to be drawn from the 
 etymological investigation of our other ordinary prepositions, by, for, 
 out, in, of, to, at, from, through, before, behind, after, &c. ; from the 
 obsolete and foreign prepositions mid, emb, anent, ohne, wegen, von, 
 van, &c. ; and, in short, from all prepositions in all languages, so far 
 as they can with any confidence be traced, in the history of speech. 
 Expression by 341. I have said, that the third mode of expressing the secondary 
 relations of substantive to substantive, or of substantive to verb, is by 
 
 prepositions. 
 
 variation. 
 
CHAP. XI.] OF PREPOSITIONS. 189 
 
 a variation in the form of a word, as foresee is varied from see, and 
 Ccesaris from Ccesar. Here are obviously two kinds of variation, 
 which may be distinguished as composition and inflection. The term 
 composition may be applied to those instances in which a preposition 
 (that is, a word capable of being used separately as a connective 
 expressing relation), or, at least, a particle (or portion of a word), 
 having a like signification, is added to a simple noun substantive or 
 verb, as the particle fore is added to the simple verb see ; and these 
 variations in most known languages are usually made by way of 
 prefix. The term inflection may be applied to those instances in 
 which a particle, incapable (at least in the same language) of being 
 used as a preposition, is added to a simple or complex noun, consti- 
 tuting a case thereof, as the particle is is added to Cossar. These 
 variations are generally made by way of suffix, or termination. Pos- 
 siblv, however, by future etymological researches, all inflections may 
 be resolved into compositions. 
 
 342. With those compound words which signify primary relation Prepositions 
 I have at present no concern. Those which signify secondary re- skion? P °" 
 lations, whether nouns or verbs, are for the most part compounded 
 
 (as I have said) with prepositions ; for instance, the noun "overseer," 
 and the verb " overtake," are compounded with the preposition over, 
 the noun superstitio, and the verb supervenio, with the preposition 
 super, and the like. In some cases, however, they are compounded 
 with a particle, the separate use of which, though it may perhaps be 
 discoverable in some kindred dialect, is either wholly wanting in the 
 language in which the compound is used, or at least is wanting in the 
 signification which it bears in the compound. Pre is not used at all 
 as a preposition in French, but enters into many compound verbs, as 
 prevoir, predire, &c. Ver does not seem to be used in modern 
 German as a preposition, but is frequent in compounds, as verstehen, 
 verloren, &c. ; and we have seen that with is not used in the sense of 
 opposition as a modern English preposition, though it is in the verbs 
 withstand, withhold, &c. These are indeed matters of idiom, but a 
 mistaken view of them might tend to mislead the grammarian, in 
 point of principle ; and the same may be said of an erroneous view of 
 the effect of " a preposition in composition," which, when united 
 with a verb, is commonly said to " govern " the same case which it 
 does alone ; whereas, in truth, this notion of government is equally 
 erroneous in both instances. The rule of the Latin grammar on this 
 point, as laid down by Messrs. de Port Royal is, that " the preposi- 
 tion preserves its force even in composition ; so that the verbs with 
 which it is compounded take the case which belongs to the preposi- 
 tion ;"* but, before I examine this rule, it will be necessary to say 
 something more of cases. 
 
 343. We are told, that "the Indian grammarians take up the Case. 
 
 * P. Royal L. G., b. v. r. 22. 
 
190 OF PREPOSITIONS. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 declinable word in its primary form, i, e., in the state when it is des- 
 titute of all case termination ;" and that " this bare form of the word 
 is given also in their dictionaries."* In other words, they fix their 
 first attention on the root, or simple radical sound, and consider all 
 inflections, whether of verb or noun, to be so many off-shoots or 
 branches from the parent stock. This method of investigating lan- 
 guages and forming dictionaries is certainly more philosophical than 
 any method pursued by either Greek or Latin grammarians. Applying 
 it to the inflections of nouns, it will at once be seen that, as well in 
 Greek and Latin as in the Sanscrit, Zend, Lithuanian, and other 
 languages of a like construction and origin, there are case terminations 
 expressing both the primary and secondary relations. Thus, if we 
 suppose the root man in Latin to signify " hand," it may be combined 
 with us and mto, signifying the primary relations of agent and object, 
 and the inflections manus and manum will respectively form the 
 nominative and accusative case singular ; and again, it may be com- 
 bined with u or ibus, signifying (inter alia) the secondary relation of 
 instrumentality, and will form the ablatives singular and plural. So, 
 in Sanscrit, the root sunu, son, gives primary relations in the nomi- 
 native and accusative, sunus and sunum ; and secondary relations in 
 the instrumental singular sunund, dual sunubhydm, and plural 
 sunubhis.\ 
 Combined 344. But though a preposition alone, or a preposition in compo- 
 sition with a verb, or the case inflection of a noun, may each sepa- 
 rately express a secondary relation, we find sometimes two, and 
 sometimes all three of these modes employed together to signify one 
 and the same relation. We may say, for instance, in Latin, with 
 only a case inflection (ine), damnari crimine, to be convicted of a 
 crime ; or, with a case inflection (ate), and a separate preposition 
 (de), damnatus de majestate, convicted of treason ; or, with a case 
 inflection (ibus), and a preposition in composition (ad), accusari 
 criminibus, to be accused of crimes ; or, with a case inflection (e), a 
 separate preposition (ex), and a preposition in composition (ex), 
 excessit ex urbe, he went out of the city. It may perhaps be asked, 
 in all but the first of these examples, why such various expressions 
 are employed to express a single relation. To this, different answers 
 may be given. In the first place, the case inflection does not always 
 express a definite relation. The termination ibus, for instance, in the 
 word criminibus, may be that of the dative or ablative plural, and, in 
 both cases, it may signify several relations. The particular relation 
 intended may in some instances be sufficiently shown by the significa- 
 tion of the verb, as feci manibus meis, " I made it with my hands," 
 where the relation intended by the case termination ibus is shown by 
 the verb feci to be that of instrumentality. But, in other instances, 
 the particular relation intended may not be quite clear without the 
 
 * Bopp, Comp. Gram. 1, 112. f Ibid., 1, 254. 
 
 modes. 
 
CHAP. XI.] OF PREPOSITIONS. 191 
 
 aid of a preposition, as effugit e manibus meis, ' ' he escaped out of my 
 hands," where, without the preposition e, it would not be clear that 
 the relation intended was not that of instrumentality. Secondly, a 
 different reason may sometimes be assigned for the apparent redun- 
 dancy of prepositions ; for they may be employed to add greater 
 intensity of feeling to the expression. It is manifest, that to repeat 
 and dwell upon expressions, often gives energy and weight to dis- 
 course, whatever may be the part of speech reiterated. Thus 
 Shakspeare reiterates the adverb too in those exquisite lines of 
 Hamlet : — 
 
 ! that this too too solid flesh would melt, 
 Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew ! 
 
 And frigid indeed is the criticism of Dr. Johnson, that this reduplica- 
 tion is harsh ! Increase of feeling naturally prompts additional 
 emphasis of expression ; and this is true not only of vehement passion, 
 but of the finer shades of emotion. Thus may we understand why 
 a preposition in composition is followed by the same preposition 
 separate. In the Andria of Terence, we find — " Quid tibi videtur ? 
 adeon' ad eum ?" So Cicero says " Nihil non consideratum exibat ex 
 ore ;" in both which instances it is impossible not to see that the 
 repetition of the preposition is a great beauty. Nor is this observa- 
 tion to be confined to the repetition of the same preposition ; for it 
 applies substantially to all prepositions, and even adverbs, of similar 
 meaning: as in Terence — "Nonne oportuit prcescisse me ante?'''' — 
 M Multa concurrunt simul" So in Virgil — " Metro sublapsa referri? 
 Grammarians of repute, it must be allowed, have censured these 
 redundancies of expression, which may perhaps be regarded as excep- 
 tions from a general rule, and ought not to enter into the ordinary 
 construction of a sentence. But the censure, when directed against 
 such passages as I have cited, rather shows an acquaintance with 
 technicalities than a nice feeling of the higher powers of language. 
 Whether a particular language will or will not admit of such combi- 
 nations is a matter of idiom ; and accordingly, we often find that 
 they cannot be transferred from one language to another by a strictly 
 literal translation. We cannot, for instance, render into English the 
 lines 
 
 quum frigidus olim 
 
 Jam cadit, extremoque inrorat Aquarius anno* 
 
 by translating inrorat ondews, or overdews ; because we have no such 
 verbs, any more than we can translate anno by the word year with 
 any case termination. 
 
 345. The omission of a preposition arises sometimes from a Omission, 
 defective construction ; but it has been often supposed by gram- 
 marians to exist where there was no necessity for such an hypothesis. 
 
 * Virgil, Georg. 3, 303. 
 
192 OF PREPOSITIONS. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 The omission of the preposition of is undoubtedly awkward in the 
 following instances : — 
 
 That every person comyng to suche feires shulde have lawefull 
 remed of all maner contractes. Stat. 1 Pic. III. c. vi. M.S. 
 
 But God that is of maist pouste 
 
 Reserued to his majestie ; 
 
 For to knaw in his prescience, 
 
 Of all kind time the first movence. Barbour. 
 
 The kyng Rohert wist he was there 
 
 And what kind chiftains with him were. Idem. 
 
 Then should they full enforcedly 
 
 Right in mids the kirk assail 
 
 The Englishmen. - Idem. 
 
 So, in old French, the preposition de is often awkwardly omitted : — 
 Wrepoch ah Edenauct, &c. oveke tot le orgoyl de Gales — descendi- 
 ient a la terrenostre seigneurs le rei. 
 
 Let. P. De Mounfort, a.d. 1256. 
 
 Qui la maison son voisin ardoir voit, 
 De la sienne douter se doit. 
 Faut noter — la maison son voisin estre diet a la fagon ancienne ; 
 au lieu de dire " la maison de son voisin." H. Estienne. 
 
 So, also, in Italian, the authors of the Vocabolario delta Crusca 
 observe, on the word casa : "Nome, dopo cli cui vien lasciato talvolta 
 dagli autori, per proprieta di linguaggio, l'articolo, o il segnacaso." 
 E si sen' andaron di concordia a casa i prestatori. Boccaccio. 
 
 Cominciano a chiedere il Gonfalone che stava in casa Germanica. — 
 " Vexillum in domo Germanici situm flagitare occipiunt." 
 
 Davanzati, Tacit. Ann. 
 
 On the other hand, though in the construction of the Latin lan- 
 guage, some grammarians contend, that where a noun is commonly 
 said to be governed by another noun, or by a verb, it is proper to 
 consider that a preposition has been suppressed; as, "Cicero fuit 
 eloquentior (prse) fratre ;" yet this seems an unnecessary refinement 
 in grammar ; for the particle or in eloquentior, and the termination e 
 in fratre, sufficiently show the relation between eloquence and frater, 
 which is all the effect that a preposition could produce. 
 
 The same observation may be made on the expression ire rus, 
 do?num, Romam, Hierosolymam, where Vossius supposes, unnecessarily, 
 an omission of ad or in ; but he adds, " Latinis tarn usitata est hgec 
 ellipsis, in exemplis allatis, ut vulgo naturalis sermo existirnetur." 
 
 It may, however, be doubted whether such constructions as alias 
 res improbus, ccetera latus, and the like, are not to be ranked among 
 the negligences of composition, though sanctioned by names of high 
 repute in Roman literature : — 
 
 I lie earn rem adeo sohrie et frugaliter 
 
 Accuravit, ut alias res est impense improbus. 
 
 Plant. Epid. iv. 1. 
 Excepto quod non simul esses, cetera loetus. 
 
 Ilorat. Ep. i. 10. 
 
CHAP. XI. J OF PREPOSITIONS. 193 
 
 Similar observations may be made on the Greek writers, who are 
 often censured for the omission of prepositions ; and the remark is 
 sometimes just, though in general the relation is sufficiently expressed, 
 and the preposition would therefore be superfluous. The learned 
 Lambertus Bos says, " Prsepositionum ellipsin tantopere amant 
 scriptores Graeci ut interdum duse prsepositiones in una orationis parte 
 omittantur. Aristoph. Nub. v. 1083. "Hv tovto viK-ndrje e/jtov: Si 
 (in) hoc (a) me victus fueris. Plene : r)v eig tovto viK-ndijg v-k efiov." 
 In this instance it would perhaps have been better, had the rhythm 
 allowed it, to express the first of the two prepositions*; but the 
 relation of e/xov to viK-nSijg is sufficiently denoted by their respective 
 terminations. 
 
 346. We sometimes find prepositions accumulated together, either Accumuia- 
 as separate words or as compounds, and, of course, modifying each 
 other. In the earlier, and less cultivated periods of a language, such 
 cumulations of words may be expected to be more common ; but as 
 grammatical accuracy and elegance of style prevail, the prepositions 
 (considered as distinct words), are confined more strictly to their 
 separate use. We find, even in Milton, the combination at under, 
 as " some trifles composed at under twenty ;" but, in the present day, 
 such a construction would hardly be tolerated by the critics. In 
 more ancient times this sort of construction was still more prevalent ; 
 and we find numberless such expressions as " of beyond," "for 
 against," and the like : — 
 
 Artificers and other straiingiers, from the parties of beyonde the see. 
 
 Stat. 1 Bio. III. c. ix. 
 
 The shiref of the seid countie of Northu.mbreland, or wardeyn of the 
 est and middell marchees for ayenst Scotlond. Stat. 11 Hen, VII. c. ix. 
 
 Where the combination has been such as to present to the mind 
 the ready conception of a new relation, it has generally been received 
 in language as a new preposition, as throughout, into, overthwart ; and 
 so perhaps the Latin intra, extra, &c. Custom, too, has sometimes 
 given a distinct force to compounds, which appear originally to have 
 had no signification different from that of the simple preposition 
 which formed their basis. Thus we have in English distinguished 
 within from in, without from out; and more slightly unto from to, 
 untill from till, &c. So in French we find en and dans, avant and 
 devant, vers and devers, pres and aupres, with more or less of dis- 
 tinction in their modern use and application ; and, in like manner, the 
 Italians, from the Latin ante, have formed innanzi, formerly inanti, 
 and dianzi ; as, from pressus, they have formed appresso and d?ap- 
 presso : — 
 
 L'alma Ciprignia inanti i primi albori 
 
 Eidendo empia d'amor la terra e'l mare. Annibal Caro. 
 
 Toma amore a l'aratro, e i sette colli, 
 
 Ou 'era dianzi il seggio tuo maggiore. F. M. Molza. 
 
 2. o 
 
194 OF PREPOSITIONS. [CHAP. XI. 
 
 Io pur douena il mio bel sole, io stesso 
 
 Seguir col pie, come segu'hor col core ; 
 E le fredde Alpi, e'l Rhen, ch'aspro rigore, 
 
 Mai sempre agghiaccia rimir d'appresso. F. M. Molza. 
 
 i^dWerenU' ^^ ' There is one circumstance in the use of prepositions, which, 
 though really dependent on usage in every language, must not here 
 be overlooked ; since it seems, at first sight, contradictory to the 
 notion that this part of speech can correctly express the actual 
 relations which it is supposed to signify. We see, in fact, that 
 various prepositions are sometimes used indifferently in a sentence ; 
 and at other times a particular preposition is absolutely essential to 
 the sense. This circumstance depends on the nature of the relation 
 intended to be expressed. In general, -the external and physical 
 relations of objects must be expressed by their own proper and pecu- 
 liar words. Thus we cannot substitute in for out, or after for before, 
 in speaking of visible objects and bodily actions : but the case is 
 different when we come to speak of the mind ; for, as the analogy of 
 its states and operations to those of the material world are very loose 
 and general, so we may adopt almost any external relation of things 
 as a symbol whereby to explain mental relations. Thus we may say 
 that a person did a certain act in envy, or out of envy, or through 
 envy, or from envy, or for envy, or with envy ; but we cannot say of 
 the same man, under the same circumstances, that he was in his 
 house, and out of his house, passing through the town, and distant 
 from the town, walking with another person, or a mile before him. 
 Still there are limits, fixed by custom, to the use of each preposition ; 
 but these limits vary much in different languages; and hence a 
 translation, correct in substance, often appears literally inaccurate. 
 Thus the French " sous peine," answers to our " on pain," and to the 
 old English " up peine." 
 
 No more up peine of lesing of your hed. Chaucer. 
 
 How a particular preposition may be employed, in this respect, is 
 mere matter of idiom, and depends solely on custom : — 
 Quern penes arbitrium est, et jus, et norma loquendi. 
 
 But it will generally be found that the prepositions of most frequent 
 use are employed with the greatest latitude, in the earlier stages of a 
 language, and so continue, until their equivocal signification gives rise 
 to inconveniences which are only to be remedied by confining them 
 to certain forms of construction. 
 
 Custom also varies in the course of time ; as may be seen in many 
 examples which have now become obsolete, as "to learn at," " to 
 accuse for" &c. But it must not always be supposed that the force 
 of a preposition is varied, because the application is different ; for the 
 difference may arise from the other words in the sentence : thus the 
 French oter a, and donner a, are our " take from? and "give to;" 
 
CHAP. XI.] OF PREPOSITIONS. 195 
 
 but in both cases a retains its primary force, and the apparent oppo- 
 sition depends on the contrariety between oter and dormer. 
 
 348. From all that has here been said of prepositions, the neces- Conclusion, 
 sity, and even beauty, of such a part of speech in all cultivated 
 languages is sufficiently manifest. " Though the original use of 
 prepositions," says Harris, "was to denote the relations of place, they 
 could not be confined to this office only. They, by degrees, extended 
 themselves to subjects incorporeal, and came to denote relations, as 
 well intellectual as local." " But how," says Cour De Gebelin, 
 "can such words introduce into the pictures of speech so much 
 harmony and clearness, and become so necessary, that without them, 
 language would present but an imperfect delineation ? How can 
 these words produce such powerful effects, and diffuse throughout 
 discourse so much warmth and delicacy ?" The reason, he adds, is 
 simple : " There is no object which does not suppose the existence of 
 some other object to which it is bound, with which it is connected, 
 to which it in some way or other bears relation. A valley supposes 
 the existence of a mountain, a mountain that of less elevated lands : 
 smoke implies fire, and there is ' no rose without a thorn.' It is of 
 necessity, then, that different objects should be bound together in 
 speech as they are in nature ; and that we should have words to 
 express the relations which exist among things." 
 
 After this, it may be unnecessary to remark on Mr. Tooke's 
 sweeping censure of the philosophers, that " though they have pre- 
 tended to teach others, they have none of them known themselves 
 what the nature of a preposition is." 
 
 02 
 
( 196 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 OF CONJUNCTIONS. 
 
 Objection to 
 the name. 
 
 Are a part ol 
 speech. 
 
 349. A simple sentence, as we have seen, may be formed by a 
 noun and a verb alone, as " John walks." The sentence may be 
 complicated by the introduction of an adverb, which modifies the 
 verb, as " John walks foremost ;" and if may be rendered still more 
 complex, by substituting for the adverb a preposition, which shows 
 the relation of the noun or verb to another noun, as " John walks 
 before Peter." But in the communication of thought, sentences, 
 whether simple or complex, must be connected together. When the 
 connexion is effected by a single word, such word belongs to the part 
 of speech, which is usually denominated a conjunction. Thus, if I 
 say " John walks and Peter rides," the word and is a conjunction ; or 
 if I say John walks but Peter rides, the word but is a conjunction. 
 
 350. Mr. Tooke objected, but most illogicahy, to this designation. 
 "Conjunctions" (said he), "it seems, are to have their denomination 
 and definition from the use to which they are applied, per accidens 
 essentiam /" What he meant by the essence of a part of speech, 
 apart from its use, it is not easy to conjecture. To conjoin is the 
 essence of a conjunction and not an accident of it. Accidens essentia; 
 junctum contingenter. Take away the accident, and the essence still 
 remains ; but if we take away from a conjunction its use in conjoining, 
 the essence of the conjunction is gone. Besides, this objection in- 
 volves Mr. Tooke in a gross inconsistency. He admits that a noun 
 differs from a verb ; but how does it differ, if not in use ? How does 
 the noun love differ from the verb love, or the noun whip from the 
 verb whip, but in use ? And if a noun differs from a verb in its use 
 alone, why should not a conjunction differ from both, in the same 
 manner ? Parts of speech are distinguished essentially by their use 
 alone ; any other distinctions which they may happen to have, are 
 accidents, which vary in different languages and at different times and 
 places, without altering their grammatical character. The English 
 conjunction, and, is essentially the same as the Greek tea), and the 
 Latin et , though it differs from them in the accidents of sound ; but 
 there is no more reason for calling the sound of a word its essence, 
 than for giving that appellation to the colour of the ink with which it 
 is printed. 
 
 351. Mr. Tooke's objections to conjunctions, however, lay deeper 
 than to their mere name. " I deny them" (said he) " to be a separate 
 sort of words, or part of speech by themselves." Such were the 
 bold, but absurd or unmeaning propositions which obtained for this 
 
CHAP. XII. J OF CONJUNCTIONS. 197 
 
 etymologist the reputation not merely of a grammarian, but of an 
 absolute inventor of the science of grammar ! He himself told us, 
 that " he meant to discard all mystery." Why, what greater mystery 
 can there possibly be, what greater confusion in the mind of a student 
 of grammar, than to be told that there is no order, no classification, 
 among words, — that if is derived from give, and therefore if and 
 give are words of the same sort, nay identically the same in all then: 
 uses — that they do not indicate by their use, any different " turns, 
 stands, postures, &c, of the mind?" The mystery here discarded is 
 the mystery of learning. The student is stopped on the veiy threshold 
 of his studies, by being assured that there is nothing for him to leam. 
 And the sage who gives him this precious information, sets up for 
 the great illuminator of mankind in this very branch of learning! 
 " I believe I differ from all the accounts which have hitherto been 
 given of language," said Mr. Tooke. Very true : and every patient 
 in Bedlam differs from all other persons who give any account of his 
 state of mind. It is somewhat strange, that in support of his title to 
 absolute originality and exclusive knowledge of grammar, this writer 
 should quote the following (among other) expressions of Lord Bacon : — ■ 
 " Quae in natura fundata sunt, crescunt et atjoentur ; qua? autem in 
 opinione variantur, non augentur." The science of grammar, which 
 is " founded in nature," was taught, as has been shown above, by 
 Plato and Aristotle. Since their time it has " grown and been 
 increased" by the labours of grammarians in a great variety of lan- 
 guages down to the present day ; and now we see it illustrated by 
 application to languages dead and living, polished and barbarous, to 
 the Sanskrit, Hebrew, Latin, and Gothic, as well as to the English 
 and French, the Soosoo, and the Chinese : and we find certain great 
 leading principles operating on them all. Why ? Because language 
 is the expression of human thoughts and feelings ; and there are 
 certain main channels in which human thoughts and feelings have 
 throughout all ages necessarily flowed. "When, therefore, at the close 
 of the eighteenth century of the Christian era, an individual professed 
 to set aside every trace and vestige of the knowledge which preceded 
 him, his doctrine was not an augmentation, but a variation, and we 
 may be well assured that it was " founded" not in nature, but in the 
 mere opinion of its pretended inventor. 
 
 352. It was Mr. Tooke's opinion, and nothing more, that a con- Opinion ex- 
 junction is not a separate part of speech. Now, what is opinion ? sdlnce ft ° m 
 Mr. Tooke presumed to ridicule Lord Monboddo's account of it, 
 derived from the Platonic philosophy, simply because Mr. Tooke 
 could not or would not understand that philosophy. Plato says that 
 the subject of opinion is neither to ov nor to jirj ov, but a medium 
 between both.* Now this, however paradoxical it may appear to 
 any person who will not take the trouble to reflect upon it, will be 
 found extremely clear, with the help of a slight degree of attention. 
 * Repub. 1. 5. 
 
198 OF CONJUNCTIONS. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 By 7-0 ov Plato meant that which is, in the absolute sense of the 
 word — that which is, always, and certainly, and without any variation. 
 By to fxrj ov he meant that which is not at any time, or in any 
 manner, and cannot be conceived to be. Thus it is always and cer- 
 tainly true that in our idea of a circle all the radii are equal; and it is 
 not at any time or in any manner true that we can form an idea of a 
 circle with unequal radii. But there is a third case which is conti- 
 nually occurring to us, namely, that an object is presented to our 
 observation which may correspond more or less accurately with a 
 given idea. We may see, for instance, a coach-wheel, or the dome of 
 St. Paul's church, but we can only form an opinion how nearly either 
 of these approaches to our idea of a perfect circle ; for the life of man 
 would not suffice to prove such coincidence beyond the possibility of 
 a doubt. Now, Plato distinguished this class of objects by the 
 expression to yiyvo/dEvov, which he opposed to to ov, as in the 
 following celebrated passage of the Timceus — Eorti/ ovv h) /car' e/urjv 
 Zo^av 7rpu>TOV Zlclioeteov Tads' t'l to *0N jj.ev 'aft, yeveaiv o"e 'ov^' 
 e\ov KaL TL T0 TirNO'MENON \xev, ov Se 'ovIettote' to jxev h^ 
 NOFTSEI, fXETCt Xoyov TTEOtX-qirTOV, 'ael Kara ravra ov. to dav 
 AO£?H, fXET atad}](TE(i)£ aXoyov, co'Za&TOV, yiyvdfievov kclI curoXXv- 
 jjlevov ovtojq oe 'ovIettote ov — which passage Cicero has thus freely 
 rendered : — " Quid est, quod semper sit, neque ullum habet ortum ? 
 et quid est, quod gignatur, nee unquam sit ? Quorum alteram 
 intelligentia et ratione comprehenditur, quod unum semper atque idem 
 est : alteram quod affert opinionem per sensus ratioms expertes, quod 
 totum opinabile est; id gignitur et interit, nee unquam esse vere 
 potest." And the general sense of both these great writers is, that 
 science is founded on that which is ; opinion on that which seems : 
 science relates to that which is distinctly apprehended, because it is 
 permanent, immutable, and consonant to the necessary laws of human 
 existence ; opinion to that which is vague and indistinct, arising from 
 sensible impressions, and the casual accidents of time and place. 
 What Mr. Tooke called his " general doctrine," was of this latter 
 kind : it was an opinion derived from comparing the sound of words, 
 not only without regarding, but often in direct opposition to their 
 sense. Should any one for a moment conceive that I am speaking 
 without due respect to the literary reputation of Mr. Tooke, I beg to 
 remind him that I speak of a passage in which Mr. Tooke himself 
 treated the profound wisdom of a Plato and a Cicero with the most 
 sovereign contempt, and even represented Lord Monboddo as an idiot, 
 for quoting their very words. Elsewhere he said that the learned 
 Lord was " incapable of writing a sentence of common English;" but 
 this is nothing to his abuse of one of his critics, the late Mr. Windham, 
 an accomplished scholar, and as honourable a man as ever existed, 
 whom Mr. Tooke called in his chapter on conjunctions, a " cannibal," 
 and " a cowardly assassin." 
 Derivation. 353. Mr. Tooke rested his opinion respecting conjunctions on their 
 
CHAP. XII.] OF CONJUNCTIONS. 199 
 
 derivation. ■"' There is not such a thing" (said he) " as a conjunction 
 in any language, which may not, by a skilful herald, be traced home to 
 its own family and origin." This may, or may not, be the case ; but 
 it is part of the history of language, and has nothing to do with the 
 science of grammar. Mr. Tooke has accurately " traced home" some 
 conjunctions : in regard to others, he has been mistaken ; but whether 
 right or wrong in the particular instances, his " general doctrine" can 
 derive no benefit from them. To prove that a word performs one 
 function at one time, does not disprove its performing another func- 
 tion at another time. Many of Mr. Tooke's etymologies in this part 
 of his work are borrowed from former writers ; but those writers 
 never conceived anything so absurd, as that derivation was the whole of 
 grammar. 
 
 354. Having disposed of these preliminary objections, I come to the Definition 
 definitions which have been given by different authors of this part of 
 speech. It has been seen that the early Greek grammarians included 
 what we call prepositions and conjunctions in the class of ^vvleajioL 
 (connectives). Subsequent writers observed, that while the preposi- 
 tion expressed a relation of word to word, the conjunction expressed a 
 connection of sentence with sentence. Hence Aldus Manutius, a very 
 able grammarian of the fifteenth century defines a conjunction, " Pars 
 orationis indeclinabilis adnectens ordinansque sententiam." Scaligee, 
 in the sixteenth century, says, " Conjunctio est quae conjungit orationes 
 plures." Sanctius, towards the end of that century, more briefly, 
 " Conjunctio orationes inter se conjungit." Vossius, in the seventeenth 
 century, " Conjunctio est quaa sententiam sentential conjungit :" Harris, 
 in the eighteenth, " The conjunction connects not words but sen- 
 tences ;" and some years after him, Cour De Gebelin, in his figurative 
 manner, says, " Une conjonction est unmot, qui de plusieurs tableaux 
 de la parole fait un tout," meaning by the word tableau not a single 
 object, or word, but such a combination as is properly called a 
 sentence. Agreeing with all these authorities in their common prin- 
 ciple, I would suggest, as the definition of a conjunction, a part of 
 speech serving to show the particular mode in which one sentence is connected 
 with another sentence. I designedly omit to notice, as characteristics 
 of the conjunction, its being " indeclinable," as stated by Manutius; 
 or " void of signification," as stated by Harris. Nor do I think it 
 proper to say with Frischlin and others, quoted by Vossius, " that it 
 conjoins verbs and sentences, actually or potentially." According to 
 the definition of a sentence above given, it is clear that the con- 
 joining of verbs must be the conjoining of sentences. And as to the 
 words " actually or potentially," they seem merely to have relation 
 to those constructions of speech, which are explainable by the figure 
 commonly called Ellipsis. On the other hand the expression " ad- 
 nectens ordinansque sententias," which was adopted by Manutius 
 from the old grammarians, Comminianus and Palaemon, appears very 
 material, and suggests the propriety of noticing that sentences are 
 
200 OF CONJUNCTIONS. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 connected by conjunctions not simply and in an uniform manner, but 
 diversely according to their particular modes of connection. 
 Do not con- 355. Here again Mr. Tooke objected that there were cases in which 
 words. " ' the words, commonly called conjunctions, did not connect sentences, 
 or show any relation between them. " You, and I, and Peter, rode 
 to London, is one sentence made up of three. Well !" (said he) " So 
 far, matters seem to go on very smoothly. It is, You rode, I rode, 
 Peter rode. But let us now change the instance, and try some others, 
 which are full as common, though not altogether so convenient. Two 
 and two make four ; AB and BC and C A form a triangle ; John and 
 Jane are a handsome couple. Does AB form a triangle, BC form a 
 triangle ? &c. Is John a couple ? Is Jane a couple ? Are two, 
 four ?" This objection of Mr. Tooke's seems to have induced Mr. 
 Lindley Murray, after defining a conjunction as " a part of speech 
 chiefly used to connect sentences," to add, " it sometimes connects 
 only words." Now, if it could be shown that the word and, or any 
 other word generally used as a conjunction, was occasionally used 
 with a different force and effect, that circumstance would not make it 
 less a conjunction, when used conjunctionally. In the instances cited, 
 however, by Tooke, the word and serves merely to distribute the whole 
 into its parts, all which bear relation to the verb : and it is observable, 
 that though the verb be not twice expressed, yet it is expressed 
 differently from what it would have been, had there been only a 
 single nominative. We say, " John is handsome," — " Jane is hand- 
 some ;" but we say John and Jane are a handsome couple. In this 
 particular, the use of the conjunction differs from that of the pre- 
 position : it varies the assertion, and thus does in effect combine 
 different sentences ; for though AB does not form a triangle, yet AB 
 forms one part of a triangle, and BC forms another part, and CA the 
 remaining part ; and these three parts are the whole. So, when 
 Perizonius says, " Emi librum x drachmis et iv. obolis," although the 
 buying was not wholly effected by the ten drachmas, nor by the four 
 oboli ; yet the purchaser did employ ten drachmas in buying, and he 
 did also employ four oboli in buying. The meaning, therefore, if fully 
 developed, would exhibit two sentences connected by the conjunction 
 and. Since the first publication of the passages immediately pre- 
 ceding, I have been glad to see the view here taken confirmed by the 
 authority of Dr. Latham, in one of his valuable grammatical works.* 
 He says, " Although the statement that conjunctions connect not 
 words but propositions, and that exclusively, is nearly coeval with 
 the study of grammar, it is not yet sufficiently either believed or 
 acted upon. ' What,' I have been frequently asked, ' are we to do 
 with such expressions as John and Thomas carry a sack to market, 
 three and three make six, &c. ? Surely this does not mean that John 
 carries one sack and Thomas another ; that one three makes one sum 
 
 * Latham, First Outlines, p. 21. 
 
CHAP. XII.] OF CONJUNCTIONS. 201 
 
 of six, and another three makes another sum of six, &c.' The answer 
 to this lies in giving the proper limitation to the predicates. It is not 
 true that John and Thomas each cany a sack ; but it is true that they 
 each of them carry. It is not true that each three makes six ; but 
 it is true that each three makes (i. e. contributes to the making). As 
 far then as the essential parts of the predicate are concerned, there are 
 two propositions ; and it is upon the essential parts only that a gram- 
 marian rests his definition of a conjunction." It may perhaps be 
 asked what is here meant by the essential part of a predicate ; for 
 instance, what is the essential part of the predicate in the proposition 
 AB, and BC, and CA form a triangle ? I apprehend that the learned 
 author last quoted would consider the essential part of the predicate 
 to be expressed by the word form ; for it is meant to assert first that 
 the line AB essentially forms some part of a figure, say the base ; 
 and that BC essentially forms another part, say the perpendicular; and 
 that CA essentially forms a third part, say the hypothenuse : and the 
 result of these three propositions is, that the three lines/arm a triangle ; 
 but this is a result which cannot be obtained, but by expressly or 
 tacitly assuming the three first propositions to be true. So, when I 
 say John and James are a handsome couple, I mean to assert tha: 
 John is handsome and also that Jane is handsome, which two 
 assertions are both implied by the conjunction and. 
 
 356. The view which I have here taken of conjunctions leads me Sentences 
 to consider first the nature of connected sentences ; secondly, the connectet;U 
 different modes of connecting them in point of signification ; and 
 thirdly, the expression of such connection by phrases or separate 
 words. And first as to the sentences connected. These it has been 
 shown must be either enunciative or passionate : in the former the 
 verb, in the latter the interjection which stands in the place of a verb, 
 is to be taken as the hinge on which all the rest of the sentence turns. 
 By means of this we form an unity of thought, a distinct perception 
 of some fact, or a feeling of some sentiment, connected with a distinct 
 object. But thoughts and sentiments do not always succeed each 
 other in the mind as detached and perfectly separate things, but 
 more commonly with associations of similarity or contrast, with rela- 
 tions of cause and effect, and with a thousand other modifications and 
 mutual dependencies. Hence these first and elementary unities be- 
 come parts of larger unities : the simple sentence forms only a phrase 
 or paragraph in a more comprehensive sentence; and the longest 
 sentence is more or less closely connected with what precedes or 
 follows it, in a long discourse or poem. Nor are the enunciative 
 capable of being connected with enunciative only, or the passionate 
 with the passionate ; but we pass naturally from a strong feeling to 
 contemplate its consequence, as in the beautiful anthem, " O that I 
 had wings like a dove ! Tlien would I flee away, and be at rest ;" * 
 
 * From Psalm lv. 6. 
 
Length of 
 passages. 
 
 Modes of 
 connection. 
 
 202 OF CONJUNCTIONS. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 where then, though adverbial in form, acts as a conjunction, by 
 showing the dependence of the second sentence on the first. 
 
 357. How far these connections may go, that is to say, how many 
 conjunctions may be admitted into one comprehensive sentence, is a 
 matter not to be determined by any grammatical rule, but must 
 depend on the taste and judgment of the writer ; and great writers, 
 more particularly great poets and orators, often seem to indulge in a 
 more than common degree of continuity. Thus Milton — 
 
 Now, Morn, her rosy steps in th' eastern clime 
 Advancing, sow'd the earth with orient pearl, 
 When Adam wak'd, so custom'd ; for his sleep 
 Was airy, light, from pure digestion bred, 
 And temp'rate vapours bland, which th' only sound 
 Of leaves and fuming rills, Aurora's fan, . . 
 
 Lightly dispers'd, mid the shrill, matin song 
 Of birds on ev'ry bough. 
 
 Thus, too, Cicero — 
 
 Potestne tibi hujus vitse lux, Catilina, aut hujus cceli spiritus esse jucundus, cum 
 scias, horum esse neminem qui nesciat, te pridie Kalendas Januarias, Lepido et 
 Tullo Consulibus, stetisse in comitio cum telo ; manum consilium et principuni 
 Civitatis interriciendorum causa paravisse ; sceleri ac furori tuo non mentem ali- 
 quam aut timorem tuum, sed fortunam Populi Romani obstitisse ? 
 
 And it is to be observed that, after each of these instances, the next 
 following sentence begins with a distinct expression of relation to that 
 which preceded it. Milton, having described Adam's sleep as light, 
 goes on to say, " so much the more his wonder was" to find that the 
 rest of Eve had been unquiet : and Cicero having briefly alluded to the 
 former atrocities of Catiline, proceeds, " ac jam ilia omitto." Indeed 
 there are some writers whose sentences, for whole pages together, are 
 connected, and it is difficult to detach a short passage so as to show its 
 whole force and effect, without referring to the previous and subse- 
 quent parts of the discourse. For instances of this continuous style, 
 I may particularly refer to the Sermons on the Creed by the cele- 
 brated Dr. Isaac Barrow ; who, it must be confessed, carried this 
 method to an excess ; for even in a continued argument the mind 
 seems to require some short pauses, and resting places, as it were, to 
 enable it to pursue its steps with regularity and firmness. 
 
 358. A slight degree of reflection must teach any one, that the 
 modes of connecting sentences, in point of signification, must be very 
 various, and consequently that conjunctions may in this view be 
 classed under several different heads. It is clear, too, that the grounds 
 of distinction between the classes ought to be adopted with care, 
 and explained with perspicuity ; so as to prevent the student from 
 employing one conjunction, when a very different one may be required 
 by the context. Accordingly, the best grammarians have philoso- 
 phically investigated the different modes in which one sentence can 
 be said to depend on, or be related to another ; and the result of 
 
CHAP. XII.] OF CONJUNCTIONS. 203 
 
 their labours has been to throw great light on the proper use of con- 
 junctions. Mr. Tooke, unable to estimate, or unwilling to acknow- 
 ledge the value of these researches, thus endeavoured to depreciate 
 them. — " We shall get rid of that farrago of useless distinctions into 
 conjunctive, adjunctive, disjunctive, subdisjunctive, copulative, negative- 
 copulative, continuative, suhcontinuative, positive, suppositive, causal, 
 collective, effective, approbative, discretive, ablative, presumptive, abne- 
 gative, completive, augmentative, alternative, hypothetical, extensive, 
 periodical, motival, conclusive, explicative, transitive, interrogative, com- 
 parative, diminutive, preventive, adequate-preventive, adversative, condi- 
 tional, suspensive, illative, conductive, declarative, &c. &c, which explain 
 nothing ; and (as most other technical terms are abused) serve only 
 to throw a veil over the ignorance of those who employ them." As 
 this mode of treating a scientific subject is extremely flattering to the 
 indolence of mankind in general, the above passage may not impro- 
 bably have produced an injurious effect, in deterring the grammatical 
 student from investigations which it falsely describes as unprofitable : 
 and I therefore think it proper to examine a declamation, which in 
 any other point of view would be totally beneath notice. In the first 
 place, there is a manifest want of good faith in heaping together a 
 number of words, " conjunctive, adjunctive," &c. &c. &c, which are not 
 to be found in any one grammatical writer, and presenting the whole 
 as a " farrago" common to such writers. This is a mere trick, and a 
 trick extremely unworthy of any man with the least pretension to 
 literary reputation. The thirty-nine terms above cited are indeed a 
 " farrago ;" they have no meaning as they stand, they are placed in 
 no order, and they have no relation to each other ; but whose fault is 
 that ? Undoubtedly Mr. Tooke's, for he was the sole author and 
 inventor of the " farrago" which he pretended to ridicule. " Most 
 other technical terms," says he, " serve only to throw a veil over the 
 ignorance of those who employ them." A profound remark ! So, 
 the geometrician must not tell us of & parallelogram, or of a rhomboid; 
 a surgeon must not speak of the metacarpal bone, or of the arterial 
 tube ; nor an engineer of a counterscarp, or a ravelin, because these 
 are all technical terms ; and technical terms are a mere veil for 
 ignorance ! Mr. Tooke, however, was not original, in applying this 
 sort of reasoning to grammar. That philosophic statesman, Jack 
 Cade, thus reproaches his prisoner Lord Say, " It will be proved to 
 thy face, that thou hast men about thee, that usually talk of a noun 
 and a verb, and such abominable words, as no Christian ear can endure 
 to hear." Admitting, however, that some technical terms may be 
 properly employed, Mr. Tooke asserted that the terms applied to 
 classify conjunctions form only a " farrago of useless distinctions." 
 Now, this it would have been better for him to prove than to assert : 
 only assertion was the easier process of the two, and presented the 
 shorter road to celebrity as a grammatical reformer ! If Mr. Tooke 
 had submitted to the labour of attempting this proof, he would have 
 
204 OF CONJUNCTIONS. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 found that some, at least, of the terms which he has specified, serve 
 to mark useful distinctions ; and that that utility had been in many 
 points well marked out by Mr. Harris, an author whom Mr. Tooke 
 affected to hold in so much, but such undeserved, contempt; for 
 whatever may have been the errors of Harris, they were not a 
 thousandth part so gross, or so injurious to the science of grammar, 
 as those into which Tooke himself had fallen. 
 SheSe! ^59. The following is a comprehensive view of Mr. Harris's scheme 
 
 for an arrangement of the species of conjunctions, according to their 
 signification :• — 
 
 {1. copulative 
 fl. suppositive 
 2. continuative <J [1. causal 
 
 1. copulative 
 
 [1. suppositive 
 
 2. positive < 
 
 collective. 
 
 2. Disjunctive 
 
 {1. simple 
 (1. absolute, or comparative 
 2. adversative 1 
 
 [2. adequate, or inadequate. 
 
 360. This scheme, it will be observed, is confined to enunciative 
 sentences. The first distinction (though not clearly so stated by 
 Harris) is substantially into connexive and disjunctive conjunctions. 
 Conjunctions (says he), while they connect sentences, either connect 
 also their meanings, or not." And. so says Scaliger, " Aut sensum 
 conjungunt ac verba, aut verba tantum conjungunt, sensum vero dis- 
 jungunt." Vossius, recognising the same distinction in principle, 
 applies to the first class the designation of copulatives. " Alias" (says 
 he) " sunt copulatives, ut, et, que, ac ; alias sunt disjunctivce ut vel, aut." 
 The former of these terms, he adds, is used in a strict sense, " Nam 
 omnis quidem conjunctio copulat ; sed has simpliciter id praestant 
 citra disjunctionem sententiae, aut caussalitatem, vel ratiocinationem." 
 On the other hand he defends the expression of disjunctive conjunctions, 
 because by them " conjunguntur voces materialiter, disjunguntur 
 formaliter." And Boethius gives the same reason in different words, 
 where he says, " Conjunctionem ea quae conjungit inter se, disjungere 
 in tertio." " I do not cite these expressions of Vossius and Boethius 
 as most happily chosen to illustrate the distinction in question ; yet 
 that distinction is no less obvious than fundamental. Every one 
 must perceive at first sight, the marked difference between these two 
 passages : — 
 
 1. Caesar was ambitious, and Rome was enslaved. 
 
 2. Caesar was ambitious, or Borne was enslaved. 
 
 In each passage, there are two propositions joined together by a 
 word, which we call a conjunction, and which does not enter into the 
 construction of either proposition. In the first passage, the joining 
 word (and) is a connexive conjunction : it merely adds the one pro- 
 position to the other, in the flow of discourse, without intimating that 
 the facts asserted in them relate at all to each other. In the second 
 
CHAP. XII.] OF CONJUNCTIONS. 205 
 
 passage, the joining word (or) rs a disjunctive conjunction : whilst it 
 joins the one proposition to the other, as successive parts of the same 
 argument, it disjoins the facts asserted in them, as standing on dif- 
 ferent though indefinite grounds of belief ; for the meaning is, I do not 
 assert positively that Csesar was ambitious, nor do I assert that Rome 
 was enslaved; but I assert that if Csesar was not ambitious, then 
 Rome was enslaved, and vice versa. Gellius uses the word connexiva 
 for that sort of conjunction, which Vossius calls copulativa ; and the 
 former term seems better suited than the latter to the scheme adopted 
 by Harris, who divides " the conjunctions, which conjoin both sen- 
 tences and their meanings," (i. e. those which I call connectives,') into 
 copulatives and continuatives. The copulative conjunction " does no 
 more," according to him, "than barely couple sentences; and is 
 therefore applicable to all subjects whose natures are not incompatible. 
 Continuatives, on the contrary, by a more intimate connection, consoli- 
 date sentences into one continuous whole ; and are therefore applicable 
 only to subjects which have an essential coincidence. To explain by 
 examples, — 'Tis no way improper to say Lysippus was a statuary, 
 and Priscian was a grammarian — The sun shineth, and the sly is clear. 
 But 'twould be absurd to say Lysippus was a statuary because 
 Priscian was a grammarian — though not to say the sun shineth 
 because the shy is clear. The reason is, that, with respect to the 
 first, the coincidence is merely accidental ; with respect to the last, 
 'tis essential and founded in nature." The Greek name for the copula- 
 tive (in this sense) was ^vvheafxog avjj.TrKeKTt.K6Q ; for the continuative 
 
 GVVCLTTTIKOQ, 01* TTapaaVVaTVTLKOQ. 
 
 361. The continuatives are subdivided by Harris into suppositive Continua- 
 and positive. The suppositives are such as if; the positives, such as 
 because, therefore, as, &c. The former denote (necessary) connection, 
 but do not assert existence ; the latter imply both the one and the 
 other. The Greek term avvcnrTiKOQ and the Latin continuaiiva was 
 applied to the suppositive conjunctions, which extend not only to 
 possible but even to impossible suppositions, as, " if the sky fall, we 
 shall catch larks ; the positives were called irapauvvcmrLKbi or sub- 
 continuativo3, and assumed the actual existence of the primary fact ; 
 and this either where the connection is strictly and logically necessary, 
 or where it is mere matter of analogy, the former case being ex- 
 pressed by because, &c, the latter by as, &c. Of the suppositives, 
 Gaza says, vTrap^iv fiev ov, uKokovdiav £e riva, kou ra^tv crjXovaiv : 
 Priscian says they signify to us " qualis est ordinatio et natura 
 rerum, cum dubitatione aliqua essentia^ rerum." And Scaliger says, 
 they conjoin "sine subsistentia necessaria; potest enim subsistere, et 
 non subsistere, utrumque enim admittunt." The positives are either 
 causal or collective. The causals are such as because, since, &c, which 
 subjoin causes to effects ; e. gr. the sun is in eclipse, because the moon 
 intervenes. The collectives are such as subjoin effects to causes; 
 e. gr. the moon intervenes, therefore the sun is in eclipse. The causals 
 

 206 OF CONJUNCTIONS. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 were called in Greek 'AirwXoyucoi, and in Latin causales or causativce ; 
 the collectives were called in Greek HvWoyigrtKoi, and in Latin col- 
 lective or illativae. 
 
 Disjunctives. 362. The disjunctive conjunctions are in like manner divisible into 
 various classes. Their first distinction is into simple and adversative. 
 A simple disjunctive conjunction, disjoins and opposes indefinitely as 
 either it is day, or it is night. An adversative disjoins with a positive 
 and definite opposition, asserting the one alternative and denying the 
 other; as it is not day, but it is night. Again, the adversatives, 
 according to Harris, admit of two distinctions, first as they are either 
 absolute or comparative, and secondly as they are either adequate or in- 
 adequate. The absolute adversative is where there is a simple oppo- 
 sition of the same attribute in different subjects, or of different 
 attributes in the same subject, or of different attributes in different 
 subjects; as 1. Achilles was brave, but Ther sites was not ; 2. Gorgias 
 was a sophist, but not a philosopher ; 3. Plato was a philosopher, but 
 Hippias was a sophist. The comparative adversative marks the equality 
 or excess of the same attribute in different subjects, as Nireus was 
 more beautiful than Achilles — Virgil was AS great a poet AS Cicero was 
 an orator. These relate to substances and their qualities, but the 
 other sort of adversatives relate to events, and their causes or conse- 
 quences. Mr. Harris applies to these latter the terms adequate and 
 inadequate ; he however confesses that this is a distinction referring only 
 to common opinion, and the form of language consonant thereto ; for 
 in strict metaphysical truth no cause that is not adequate is any cause 
 at all. Thus we may say, Troy will be taken unless the Palladium be 
 preserved ; where the word unless implies as matter of opinion, that 
 the preservation of the Palladium will be an adequate preventive of the 
 capture of Troy. On the other hand, when we say, Troy will be 
 taken although Hector defend it, we intimate an opinion that Hector's 
 defending it, though employed to prevent the capture, will be an 
 inadequate preventive. 
 
 Subdisjunc- 363. Priscian introduces a distinction which he calls subdisjunctiva, 
 and in which he is followed by Scaliger and Vossrus. According 
 to these authorities, the Latin sive, answering nearly to the Greek 
 eir ovv, is a subdisjunctive conjunction, inasmuch as it disjoins not 
 the meaning of any sentence, but merely different names given to a 
 conception involved in a sentence. Thus " Alexander sive Paris " 
 signifies the same person who is sometimes called Alexander, and 
 sometimes Paris. " A globe or sphere " means the same figure, which 
 some call a globe, and some a sphere. " John Brown alias Thomas 
 Webb " means the same individual who has gone at different times 
 by these different names. But if the words sive, or, and alias are 
 here to be deemed conjunctions, it must be by a very different ellipsis 
 from that employed in the case of a disjunctive. When we say dis- 
 junctively " every number is even or odd," the ellipsis if filled up 
 would be " every particular number is either an even number, or 
 
 tive 
 
CHAP. XII. J OF CONJUNCTIONS, 207 
 
 else it is an odd number." But when we say " Alexander or Paris 
 fled from the field of battle," the ellipsis if filled up would be a 
 person fled from the field of battle, who was called Alexander, or else 
 he was called Paris. Unfortunately we employ our English word or 
 in both characters, disjunctive and subdisjunctive, which sometimes 
 occasions no small obscurity, especially in narratives. It were to be 
 wished that we had two different words for these two different pur- 
 poses ; but since that is not the case, it becomes the more necessary 
 to distinguish the different functions of the same word by appropriate 
 designations. 
 
 364. It must be observed that many old grammarians not only other 
 classify conjunctions differently from the scheme above adopted, and 
 give other names to the different species than those here employed ; 
 but when they use the same terms, it is sometimes with a different 
 force and effect. Thus Apollonius divided causal conjunctions into 
 
 five species, viz., continuatives, subcontinuatives, proper causals, ad- 
 junctives, and effectives, and in this he was followed by Manutius. It 
 would be endless, however, to note all these diversities of arrange- 
 ment; and as Mr. Harris's scheme is one of the simplest, I have 
 chosen to follow it, with some small correction. 
 
 365. Having thus seen how sentences may be connected together Conjunc- 
 in point of signification, I come now to consider how they may be phrases, 
 connected in expression. Now it is manifest, that one sentence may, 
 
 and generally speaking, in a long discourse, the majority of sentences 
 must, serve to lead the mind from what precedes to what follows. It 
 would, however, be endless to attempt to point out all the means by 
 which this is effected ; nor would such an explanation, if practicable, 
 properly fall within the scope of grammar. The remark nevertheless 
 is important ; for a sentence is in this respect only the development 
 of an operation of the mind more briefly effected by a word or a 
 phrase. In treating of prepositions, I first considered prepositional 
 phrases, and then showed how those phrases were gradually com- 
 pressed into words constituting that class to which the name of pre- 
 position is usually assigned. In like manner, I here think it advisable 
 to examine first the Conjunctional phrases, and then the separate words 
 called Conjunctions. It seems probable that in the early attempts to 
 form a connected discourse, the junction of sentences, which is now 
 performed by a single word, could not easily be effected by unprac- 
 tised speakers, except by the more circuitous mode of whole sen- 
 tences, or phrases. In process of time these were contracted by 
 means of ellipses, that is, by dropping out those portions of the sen- 
 tence or phrase which were easily supplied by the intelligence of the 
 hearer, and retaining only the word which most distinctly marked in 
 the one sentence the sort of dependence on or relation which it bore 
 to the other. Hence it is, that even at this day there are certain 
 conjunctional forms, concerning which it is not always easy to deter- 
 mine whether they should be regarded as words or phrases. Thus 
 
208 OF CONJUNCTIONS. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 R. Stephanus says of quamobrem, that it is " unica dictio, quibus- 
 dam etiam tres :" and Vossius says " quamobrem, quasobres, propterea, 
 quare, et similia, non videntur hujus esse classis (sc. conjunctionum) 
 quia non tarn vox unica sunt, eaque composita, quam plures." And 
 again, " Vix caussa apparet cur quamobrem magis sit vox unica, quam 
 earn ob rem : vel quare quam ea re ; ut illo Tulliano, Ea re ad te 
 statim Aristocritum misi. n * So Lucretius : — 
 
 Quas ob res, ubi viderimus nil posse creari 
 A nihilo.f 
 
 In our own language several of the conjunctions now considered as 
 single words, were formerly phrases ; such are because, therefore, where- 
 fore ; and such too are the following in Old English, Scottish, and 
 French, Howe be it— for ate moche — at least waye — not forcing whether 
 ■ — contrariwise — insafer as— pur ceo que — cest asavoir — and over that — 
 coment que — how often, so often — no the less — neuerthelas — not for thi — 
 nought gaynstandand—forfered that — set in cais — put the cais—forseing 
 that, &c. &c. 
 
 Howe be it, the kynge held styll his siege. Berners' Froissart. 
 
 Bot for als moclie as sum micht think or seyne 
 
 Quhat nedis me apoun so lytill evyn 
 
 To writt all this ; I ansuere thus ageyne. The King's Quair. 
 
 This geare lacketh wethering ; at least waye it is not for me to plough. 
 
 Bishop Latimer. 
 
 These words goe generally to all the king's tenante — not forcing wlietlier he haue 
 the reuersion by dyseent. Sir W. Staunford, A.D. 1590. 
 
 Contrariwise, certain Laodiceans and lukewarm persons think they may accom- 
 modate points of religion by middle ways. Bacon. Essays. 
 
 And decemis the saidis actis and euery ane of thame to be abolishit and extinct 
 for euer, insafer as ony of the saidis actis ar repugnant and contrarie to the eonfes- 
 sioun and word of God foirsaidis. Scot. Act. Pari. A.D. 1567. 
 
 E pur ceo qe aucunes gentz de nre Roiaume se doutent qe les aides &c. pussent 
 turner en servage a eus e a leurs heirs avoms graunte pur nous et pur nos heires qe 
 mes tieles aides &c. ne treroms a custume. Stat. 25 Edw. I.c.l, A.D. 1297. 
 
 Meismes les chartres en toutz leur pointz en pies devaunt eus e en jugementz les 
 facent alower, cest asavoir la grand chartre des franchises come ley commune, e la 
 chartre de la forest solom 1' assise de la forest. Ibid. 
 
 That — the same fyne be openly and solemply rad and proclaymed in the same 
 court — And in the same tyme that it is so redd and proclaymed all plees cesse ; 
 and over that a transcript of the same fyne be sent by the seid justices unto the 
 justices of assisez. Stat. 1 Ric. III. c J 7, MS. 
 
 II de common droit poit distreiner pur le rent aderere, coment que tiel done fuit 
 fait sauns fait. Littleton, sect. 214. 
 
 Hov: often his eye turned to his attractiue adamant, so often did an vnspeakeable 
 horrour strike his noble heart. Sir P. Sidney's Arcadia. 
 
 What ansuere thei bare the sothe can I not say 
 
 JS T o the les of fele this was the com on sawe. R. De Brunne. 
 
 * Epist. ad Fam. 14, 3. -J De Rer. Nat. 1, 155. 
 
CHAP. XII.] OF CONJUNCTIONS. 209 
 
 Youe knowe, Lordes Syracusans, that we haue hytherto done in thys warre, as 
 men of honestie : neuerthelas, leste there be anny that vnderstandeth not fullye the 
 affayre, I wolle well declare yt vnto hym. JS T icolls's Thucydides, fo. 191. 
 
 Was mad another statute, that non erle no baroun 
 Xo other lorde sfoute ne fraunkeleyn of toun 
 Tille holy kirke salle gyne tenement rent no lond. 
 Not for tM he wille that alie religioun 
 Haf and hold in skrlle that gyuen is at resoun. 
 
 E. De Brunne. 
 
 Item it is ordanyt that all craftis &c. be distroyit nought gaynstandand ony priui- 
 legis or fredome geifyn in the contrare. Scot. Act. Pari. A.D. 1424. 
 
 He slogh him sone that ilk day 
 
 Forfered that he sold oght say. The Seuyn Sages. 
 
 With stout eurage agane him wend I will 
 
 Thocht he in proues pas the grete Achill, 
 
 Or set in cais sic armour he weris as he, 
 
 Wrocht be the handis of God Vulcanus sle. Gaicin Douglas. 
 
 And put the cais that I may not optene 
 
 From Latyne land thaim to expell all clene, 
 
 Tit at leist thare may fall stop or delay. Idem. 
 
 It may be ordered that ii or iii of our owne shippes do see the sayde Frenche 
 soldiers wafted to the coast of France ; forseing that our sayd shippes entre no 
 hauen there. Q. Elizabeth to Sir W. Cecil. 
 
 It is plain, that these phrases operate, with relation to the sen- 
 tences between which they show a relation, exactly in the same 
 manner as the words do, which we call conjunctions. A phrase is 
 first abbreviated into its principal words, and these are again con- 
 tracted into one short word. Thus the French c'est asavoir above 
 quoted was probably first translated into English, " it is to know," 
 or " it is to wit," whence we now have in our legal documents the 
 abbreviated phrase, " to wit ;" as from the Latin videre licet comes 
 videlicet, which we have adopted into the English language. These 
 abbreviations and contractions are very arbitrary in their use ; and 
 the longer sometimes supersedes the snorter. Our ancestors in the 
 fifteenth century used to say where, for that conjunction which we 
 now express by whereas, i. e. where that. 
 
 Wher in a statute made in the xvij yere of the reign of King Edward the iiijth 
 hit was ordeigned, &c. &c. Please it therefore youre highnesse &c. to ordeign. 
 
 Stat. 1 Hie. III. c. 6 > MS. 
 
 366. I have before observed on the erroneous notion entertained by conjaat*i©»s» 
 some grammarians, that men at any period, of history set to work 
 " to invent little words" (d'inventer des petits mots), to be employed 
 merely as prepositions : and ■ the same remark is applicable to con- 
 junctions. It is true, that of some few conjunctions we cannot trace 
 the origin with perfect certainty ; but even these are manifestly con- 
 nected more or less closely with significant words in different lan- 
 guages or dialects : and the far greater number are distinctlv seen to 
 have been used as nouns or verbs, somewhat differing perhaps in 
 form, but showing a clear analogy in signification. This will be 
 2. p 
 
210 OF CONJUNCTIONS. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 rendered sufficiently clear, by tracing the etymology of two or three 
 of the principal conjunctions ; the others being reserved for their 
 appropriate place in a future part of this treatise. 
 
 And. 367. " The principal copulative," says Harris, " is and" which 
 answers to the Greek kcll and the Latin et, and is found substan- 
 tially in all cultivated languages. Vossius considers the Latin et to 
 be derived per apocopen from the Greek hi, prceterea, insuper ; or, 
 more properly speaking, to be the very word en, only pronounced 
 more briefly by the Latins. It is remarkable that in the most 
 ancient remains that we have of the Latin language, the fragments of 
 the laws of the Twelve Tables, et rarely if ever occurs, but its place 
 is supplied by the enclitic que, which is probably of the same origin 
 as the Greek ical. The force and effect'of all these words, as simply 
 coupling together sentences, will be fully understood from what has 
 been already said of the copulative conjunctions. Mr. Tooke derives 
 our common word and from An-ad, which he says in Anglo-Saxon 
 signifies dare congeriem. This etymology is altogether obscure. It 
 has even been doubted whether Anan, which he expounds dare, to 
 give or grant, had any such meaning ; and as to the syllable ad, which 
 he translates congeriem, it signified a funeral pile. However, with 
 his usual confidence in his own judgment, he elsewhere says, " I have 
 already given the derivation which I believe will alone stand exami- 
 nation." Skinner, more modestly, but with at least as much plausi- 
 bility, says, ' ' And — nescio an a Lat. addere, q. d. add, interjecta per 
 epenthesin n, ut in render, a reddendo." A word of this very ancient 
 use can only be guessed at with much doubt, and may possibly be 
 itself one of the original roots of language. We find terms of some 
 analogy to it in the early Gothic dialects. In the Frankish and Ala- 
 mannic it is written indi, inti, enti, unte, unde ; in the modern German 
 und ; in Icelandic end, in Lower Saxon un. Adelung, considering 
 (like Skinner) that the letter n is often inserted in one dialect, while 
 it is omitted in another, is of opinion that the Latin et, and Greek hi 
 are identical in origin with the Teutonic enti, unte, &c. It is possible 
 too, that our word and may have a connection with the Masso-Gothic 
 and, which is used as a preposition answering to the Greek kv, etg, 
 £7n, Kara; or with the word, andar, which in the same language 
 means " other." Upon the whole, Skinner's suggestion is probably 
 not very remote from the truth ; for the meaning of and is clearly add ; 
 nay, in separate sentences we may always substitute the imperative 
 add for the conjunction and, with little if any difference in the force or 
 intelligibility of the sentence. Thus, " John rode, add Peter walked, 
 add James sailed," will not only convey the same notions, but will 
 connect them nearly in the same manner, as if it had been more 
 elegantly written, " John rode, and Peter walked, and James sailed." 
 
 .If. 368. I come now to the continuative conjunctions, that is to say, 
 
 those which not only connect sentences and their meanings by coupling 
 them together, but mark a dependence of one on the other ; and this, 
 
CHAP. XII.] OF CONJUNCTIONS. 211 
 
 first as suppositives — if is called by Mr. Harris a suppositive conjunc- 
 tion : some other grammarians term it a conditional ; but however it 
 may be designated, the general force and effect of such a conjunction 
 is obvious in most languages. It serves to mark the certain de- 
 pendence of one event on another, without asserting the absolute 
 existence of either. We therefore intimate, that if the one be, the 
 other must necessarily result from it ; that when we are sure of the 
 one, then we may reckon upon the other also ; or that the former 
 being given as a datum, the latter follows by the power of reasoning. 
 Hence the Greek ei, and the Latin si merely expressed being ; for u 
 is part of the verb ew or eifii, and si is part of siet or sit. The power 
 of the conjunction ei is thus elegantly illustrated by Plutarch, ac- 
 cording to the free translation of the old English folio : "In logike, 
 this conjunction EI (that is to say if, which is so apt to continue a 
 speech and proposition) hath a great force, as being that which giveth 
 forme unto that proposition, which is most agreeable to discourse of 
 reason and argumentation. And who can deny it? considering that 
 the very brute beasts themselves have in some sort a certeine know- 
 ledge and true intelligence of the subsistence of things ; but nature 
 hath given to man alone the notice of consequence, and the judgement 
 for to know how to discerne that which followeth upon every thing. 
 For that it is day, and that it is light, the very woolves, dogs, and 
 cocks perceive ; but that if it be day, of necessitie it must make the aire 
 light, there is no creature, save onely man that knoweth." The Greek 
 or Latin construction, therefore, is " be it that there is day there must 
 be light." Again, the German conjunction answering to our if is 
 wenn, which also signifies when. Hence the expression, " Wenn man 
 dich fragt, so antworte," which signifies " if any one asks you, answer 
 thus," may be rendered with little difference of meaning, " when any 
 one asks you, answer thus." The etymology of our English conjunc- 
 tion if has of late been matter of dispute. Skinner first traced a 
 connection between it and the Anglo-Saxon verb gifan, to give. Gif 
 the Anglo-Saxon conjunction, he says, was used in his time in Lin- 
 colnshire for if Tooke, it seems, was struck with this suggestion of 
 Skinner's; insomuch that (as has been well observed) "this word 
 was probably the foundation of his whole system."* Believing that 
 if was the imperative of give, " he naturally enough concluded that 
 other particles might be accounted for by the same process. Accord- 
 ingly he expended a profusion of labour and perverse ingenuity in de- 
 tecting imperatives where none ever existed, or possibly could."j 
 Dr. Jamieson conceives that neither the Gothic jdbai (as he writes it), 
 nor the Alamannic ibu, ob, oba, nor the Icelandic if or ef can be 
 formed from the verbs denoting to give, in those languages.! Else- 
 where it has been remarked, " that the great variety of ancient forms 
 makes it difficult to determine the precise etymon. Some are not 
 
 * Quart. Rev., No. 108, p. 316. f Ibid. 
 
 % Scottish Diet., art. Gif. 
 
 p2 
 
212 OF CONJUNCTIONS. [CHAP. XIT. 
 
 unlike the Sanscrit iva — (sicut) — others have the form of nouns. The 
 old German ibu, ipu, may be resolved into the ablative or instru- 
 mental of ipa, iba, (dubium) : and the Icelandic ef (if,) appears to be 
 connected with the substantive eft, a doubt, and efa, to doubt, in that 
 language."* With all due deference to the learned authors of these 
 arguments, it appears to me that they are not quite conclusive. It 
 surely does not follow that because a suppositive conjunction in one 
 language is not connected with a verb of a particular signification in 
 that language, a similar conjunction cannot possibly be connected with 
 a verb of like signification in another language. It does not follow, 
 that because h is not connected with ^i^oj/it in Greek, nor si with 
 dare in Latin, there can be no connection in Maeso-Gothic between 
 the conjunction jabai or yabai, and the verbs and' nouns gibai, giba, at- 
 giban, gaft, atgaft ; nor in Anglo-Saxon, between the conjunction gif 
 or gyf, and the imperative gif or gyf the infinitive gif an or gyf an, the 
 preterite gaf or geaf, or the substantives gifa or gyfa, gift or 
 gyft, &c. ; nor again in English between the conjunction if (written 
 or pronounced in old or provincial English and Scotch, yf yiff, yiffe, 
 yef yive, geve, gef gyf, gif, gif, gin), and the verbs, nouns, and 
 participles gave, yeve, gyf, gaf, giftys, yarn, yevyth, yeftys,yeft, yiftis, 
 yevours, yevers, given, geven, yeven, yeoven. It is to be remarked that 
 whatever may be the origin of the various Teutonic words signifying 
 to give, they have manifestly undergone many changes of pronuncia- 
 tion both in the consonants and vowels ; and the same is observable 
 in the Scandinavian dialects. Of the German verb geben, the two 
 first persons present are ich gebe, du gibst, the past indicative is ich 
 gab, the conjunctive ich gabe, and the imperative gib; and the noun 
 (gift) is gabe. In the Frankish and Alamannic, we find as nouns or 
 verbs gaba, geba, heba, Mb, gheban, ghibu, gibu. In the Icelandic, 
 Swedish, and Danish, gafwa, gifwa, gifva, gofwa, gaf, gave, give. It 
 is also to 'be remarked that this variety has been increased by the 
 different force and effect given to the Gothic letter (J and the Anglo- 
 Saxon 3, of which the first was taken from one form of the Roman 
 G, of the lower empire, and the other from another form of the same 
 letter. The different powers of these letters have been expressed in 
 different dialects by g, j, y, and z. Hence the Anglo-Saxon geboren 
 (born) answers to the modern German geboren, and old English 
 yborn ; the Anglo-Saxon daeg to the modern English day, the Frisiac 
 jern to the Anglo-Saxon georn and English yearn, and the Anglo- 
 Saxon gear to the English year, and the old Scottish word written (if 
 ■not pronounced) zeir. A third remark is also material, namely, that 
 it is not only the imperative of the verb to give, which has been used 
 with a conjunctional force, but also the past participle given of the 
 same verb. Keeping in view these remarks, I proceed to the following 
 examples of the connection between the nouns, verbs, and participles, 
 alluded to, with the different forms of the conjunction in question. 
 * Quart. Rev. ut. sup. 
 
CHAP. XII.] OF CONJUNCTIONS. 213 
 
 i. Mceso-Gothic. — Here the conjunction which Di\ Jamieson reads 
 jabai (if) being spelt with Q, would more agreeably to our pronun- 
 ciation be read yabai, and is connected with gibai, giba, gaft, &c, 
 just as our provincial word yate is with the ordinary word gate. 
 
 Yabai afletith mannam missadedins ize. — If you pardon men their misdeeds. 
 
 Matt. vi. 14. 
 
 Gibaiizai afstassis bores. — Let him give her a bill of divorce. Matt. v. 31 » 
 
 Atbair tho giba theina.' — Present thy gift. Matt. v. 24-. 
 
 Wato mis ana fotuns meinans ni gaft. — Water to me for my feet thou gavesi 
 not. Luke, vii. 44. 
 
 Atgaf siponyam seinaim. — He gave to his disciples. Mark, viii. 6. 
 
 Hlaif unsaruna thena sinteinan gif uns himmadaga. — Our constant bread give us 
 this day.. Matt. vi. 11. 
 
 ii. Anglo-Saxon. — Here the z is equally used for words which 
 answer to our g and y : — 
 
 Zif ze that secan willeth. — If (pro v. gif) ye will seek that. 
 
 Alfred's Bede, 1. 1. c. 1. 
 
 Se cyhing his zife sealde. — The king presented his gifts. Ibid. 1. 2, c. 3. 
 
 He forgeaf thone anweald his apostolon. — He gave the power to his apostles. 
 
 Ibid. 1. 3, c. 7. . 
 
 iii. . Old English and Scotch : — 
 
 Hartely myght thei warry me, 
 That of ther gud had ben so fre, 
 
 To gyffe me and to sende. Sir Amadds. 
 
 Sir Amis answerd tho 
 
 Sir, therof give Y nought a slo 
 
 Do al that thou may. Amis and Amiloun. 
 
 Not Avarice the foule caytyfe 
 
 Was halfe to grype so ententyfe, 
 
 As Largesse is to yeue & spende. Chaucer. ■ 
 
 And with hys hevy mase of stele 
 
 There he gaff the kyng hys dele'. Richard Coer de Lion. 
 
 And truely in the blustring of her looke, shee yarn gladnes & comforte sodainly 
 to all my wittes. Chaucer, Test. Lov. 
 
 The remedy by the seid estatutes is not verray perfite nor yevyth certeyn ne 
 hasty remedy. Stat. 11 Hen. VII. c. 22, MS. ■ 
 
 He gaf gyftys largelyche 
 
 Gold & syluer & clodes ryche. Launfal Miles. 
 
 For gret yeftys that she gan bede, 
 
 To londe the schypmen gonne her lede. 
 
 Octouian Imperator. 
 
 Every astate, feoffement, yeft, relesse, graunte, lesis and confirmacidns of 
 landys. Stat. 1 Rich. III. c. 1. MS. 
 
 Provided that this acte — extend not — to any graunte or grauntes, yeft or yiftis, 
 had or made by the kinges letres patentes to the same Anthony. 
 
 Stat. 11 Hen. VII. c. 31. MS. 
 Ayenst the sellers, feffours, yevours or grauntours, and his or their heires. 
 
 Stat. 1 Rich. III. c. 1. MS. 
 
214 OF CONJUNCTIONS. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 That no artificer ne laborer herafter named take no more ne gretter wagis then in 
 this estatute is lymytted, upon the payne assessed as well unto the taker as to the 
 yever. Stat. 11 Hen. VII. c. 22. MS. 
 
 Which lawe by negligence ys disused, and therby grete boldnes ys goven to sleers 
 and murdrers. " Stat. 3 Hen. VII. c. 2. MS. 
 
 Yeoven under our signet. Q. Elizabeth, Let. to Sir W. Cecil. 
 
 If the seid lessee or lesses within viii daies warnyng to theym yeven by any of 
 the seid justices of the peas. Stat.. 11 Hen.. VII. c. 9, MS. 
 
 Or yit gewe Virgil stude well before. Gawin Douglas. 
 
 Eorthliche knyght, or eorthliche kyng 
 
 Nis so swete in no thyng ; 
 
 O-ef he is God,. he is mylde. Hyng Alisaunder. 
 
 He askyd at all the route, 
 
 Gyff ony durste com and prove 
 
 A cours for hys lemannes love. Richard Coer de Lion-. 
 
 For giff he be of so grete excellence, 
 
 That he of every wight hath cure & charge, 
 
 Quhat have I gilt to him, or doon offense ? 
 
 K. James I. The King's Quair. 
 
 The domes and law pronoun cis sche to thaym then, 
 
 The feis of thare laubouris equalye 
 
 Gart distribute. Gif dout fallis thareby 
 
 Be cut or cavill that plede sone partid was. Gawin Douglas. 
 
 Ich am comen hider to day, 
 
 For to sauen hem, yiue Y may. Amis and Amiloun. 
 
 Tef thou me louest ase mon says, 
 Lemmon as y wene ; 
 Ant yef hit thi wille be 
 Thou loke that hit be sene. 
 
 MS.Harl. No. 2253, fol. 80.- 
 
 Wurthe we never for men telde,. 
 Sith he hath don us thys despyte, 
 Tiffe he agayn passe quyte. Richard Coer de Lion. 
 
 He thought yif ich com hir to, 
 
 More than ichaue ydo, 
 
 The abbesse wil souchy gile. Lay Le Freine. 
 
 The lawe of the land ys that yf eny man be slayne in the day, and the felon not 
 taken, the townshipp wher the deth or. murder is done shal be amerced. 
 
 Stat. 3 Hen. VII. c. 2, MS. 
 
 Gin living worth cou'd win my heart,. 
 
 You wou'd na speak in vain. Scots Song. 
 
 It can hardly be doubted but that these words geve, gef, gyff, giff, 
 gif, give, yef, yiffe, yiff, yif, yf, which in the last eleven examples are 
 conjunctions, are the same in origin with the preceding verbs geve, 
 yeve, gyffe, gaff, yave, yevyth, and the nouns giftys, yeftys, yeft, yiftis, 
 yevours, yevers ; and it seems still plainer that the conjunction gi'n is 
 merely a different application of the participle goven, yeoven, or yeven, 
 which is the. modern given. But this change in the use of the words 
 if, gif, g'in, &c. causes them to express a new "posture, stand, turn,. 
 
CHAP. XII.] OF CONJUNCTIONS. 215 
 
 or thought of mind " (as Mr. Locke speaks), and thus to perform a 
 different function in language, or become a different " part of speech," 
 namely, a conjunction. Mr. Tooke, therefore, is right so far as he 
 follows Skinner, who first showed the connection between if and 
 give : but he is wrong, when, trusting to his own theory, he says, 
 " our corrupted if has always the signification of the English impe- 
 rative give, and no other''' In short he is right where he is not 
 original, and original only where he is not right. Nor is his " addi- 
 tional proof" of much relevancy. " As an additional proof," says 
 he, " we may observe, that whenever the datum upon which any 
 conclusion depends, is a sentence, the article that if not expressed is 
 always understood, and may be inserted after if : as in the instance — 
 
 — — — My largesse 
 
 Hath lotted her to be your brother's mistresse, 
 
 Gif shee can be reclam'd ; gif not, his prey. 
 
 Sad Shepherd, act 2, sc. 1. 
 The poet might have said, 
 
 Gif that she can be reclam'd, &c. 
 But the article that is not understood, and cannot be inserted after if 
 where the datum is not a sentence but some noun governed by the 
 verb if or give. Exam. ' How will the weather dispose of you to- 
 morrow ?' ' If fair, it will send me abroad, &c.' " So far Tooke. 
 Now the whole of this observation turns on the peculiar idiom of the 
 English language, which admits one form of ellipsis and not another ; 
 for all these constructions are elliptical ; and the word that, which is 
 a conjunction as well as if, has not the least pretension in such sen- 
 tences to be called an article. I shall have occasion hereafter to notice 
 some other uses of this conjunction, when I speak of the phrases 01 
 si — ! gin, an if as if, &c. 
 
 369. Of the disjunctive conjunctions, I will here only instance Though. 
 Though, a word of the class which Harris calls inadequate adversa- Althou ? h ' 
 tives ; that is to say, conjunctions uniting two sentences, one of which 
 states an event or circumstance, and the other states another event or 
 circumstance as inadequate to prevent the former : ex. gr. " Troy will 
 be taken although Hector defend it," where the conjunction although 
 serves to show that Hector defends Troy with a view to prevent its 
 being taken ; but that this preventive is inadequate to produce the 
 intended effect. We may, however, observe that the same conjunc- 
 tion is used, and by a just analogy to mark an apparent incongruity 
 of qualities, where the possession of the one does not, in fact, pre- 
 clude the existence of the other, as, " though brave, yet pious ;" though 
 learned, yet polite." But a more forcible illustration of the true 
 nature of our adversative conjunction, though, cannot be given than in 
 the daring speech of Macbeth — ■ 
 
 Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane, 
 
 And thou oppos'd being of no woman born, 
 
 Yet will I try the last. 
 
216 OF CONJUNCTIONS. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 If we examine the real force of the word though in these and similar 
 passages (and although is merely an intensive form of the same con- 
 junction), we shall find that it does not imply an absolute inadequacy 
 to produce a given effect, but such an inadequacy as may be thought 
 to exist. It might have been thought, for instance, that Troy could 
 not fall, if it was defended by Hector. It might have been thought, 
 that a particular individual distinguished for bravery was therefore 
 unlikely to be very pious ; or that one absorbed in the pursuit of 
 learning would pay little attention to the minutiae of politeness. 
 Above all it might have been thought, that when events apparently 
 miraculous, and on whose impossibility a man of strong feelings like 
 Macbeth had staked his rank, his honour, and his life, did really come 
 to pass, he would have been utterly prostrated with terror, and 
 unable to strike a blow in his own defence. Judging from the ordi- 
 nary course of human affairs, such thoughts would not have been 
 unreasonable. The conjunction though, therefore, merely indicated an 
 unexpected difference between truth and probability : and being 
 directly connected with the probable, it required another conjunction, 
 such as yet, or nevertheless, to denote the true. Mr. Tooke says, 
 " Tho' or though is the imperative thaf or thqfig, from the verb thafian, 
 or thafigan to allow." This is one of the few instances in which he 
 ventured on an original etymology : it appears indeed at first sight 
 plausible, but I fear it will scarcely bear examination. The proper 
 meaning of the verb thafigan, thafian, or gethafian is to permit, as by 
 a superior to an inferior. In a charter of William the Conqueror we 
 find, " Ic nelle gethafian thaet aenig man this abrecan;" which in the 
 ancient Latin version is thus rendered, " Ego nolo consentire ut aliquis 
 istud frangat :" and the same clause occurs in two other charters, one 
 of Henry I., the other of Henry II., in the latter of which the verb 
 is spelt gethauian, i. e., gethavian. If this had been the origin of ; our 
 conjunction, we should find an Anglo-Saxon conjunction thafig, or 
 thaf; but there is no such conjunction in that language ; the corre- 
 spondent Anglo-Saxon conjunction is theah, a word plainly connected 
 with the Anglo-Saxon substantive theaht, as our conjunction though 
 is with our corresponding substantive thought. Neither do we find 
 the/*, or v, of thafian or thavian, in the analogous conjunctions of any 
 of the other German dialects, Teutonic or Scandinavian. Ademjng, 
 under the German word doch, says, " In Low Saxon this particle is 
 sounded doch and dog, by Ulphila thau, by Ottfried thoh, by Willeram 
 doh, in Anglo-Saxon theah, in Dutch doch, in English though, in Danish 
 dog, in Swedish dock." 
 
 In old English and Scottish we find it written very variously, thah, 
 thau, thaugh, thoffe, thof, thocht, and thought : — 
 
 Ei chard thah thou be euer trichard 
 Tricchen shalt thou neuer more. 
 
 Song on Battle of Lewes. 
 
CHAP. XII.] OF CONJUNCTIONS. 217 
 
 Ant for ir feirnesse, thau ho be comen of threlle, 
 Hire wedlac ne seal ho nout lesen all. 
 
 Vita Sanctce Margaretce. 
 
 Thaugh me slowe feole of heom, 
 
 They si owe mo of the kyngis men. Kyng Alisaunder. 
 
 Thoffe T owe syche too. Sir Amadas. 
 
 Thof men wolde alle the londe seche. 
 
 MS. Hart. 7333, fol. 125. " 
 
 Bot tliocht I failyeit of rhyming, 
 Forgif me for my will was gude. 
 
 Scottish Horn, of Alexander. 
 
 ThocM be na reson persaue I mycht but fale 
 
 Quhat than the force of armis cond auale. Gawin Douglas. 
 
 Tliocht he remission 
 Haif for prodission, 
 Schame and suspission 
 
 Ay with him dwells. Dunbar. 
 
 The king — woll — that suche possession — Teste and be — holy in the 
 other persone — in like wise as thought he had never be enfeoffed. 
 
 Stat.l Ric.III.cbyMS. 
 
 It is to be observed that Gawin Douglas and other Scottish writers 
 spell tliocht, the past tense of the verb, to think, exactly as they do this 
 conjunction : — 
 
 So that we thocht maist semelye, in ane field, 
 
 To de fechtand ennarmed vnder schield. Gawin Douglas. 
 
 But said they sould sound thair retreit, 
 Because they thocht them nae ways meit 
 
 Conducters unto me. Alex. Montgomery. 
 
 Add to this that the Anglo-Saxon athoht, or gethoht, the Dutch 
 gedocht, and the German gedacht, all answer to our substantive thought; 
 and upon the whole it may be reasonably concluded that our pre- 
 sent conjunction though, is not derived from the Anglo Saxon verb 
 thafigan, or thafian ; but comes to us, through various modifications, 
 from the Anglo-Saxon conjunction theah, connected with the Anglo- 
 Saxon substantive theaht, which we have in like- manner modified 
 into thought. 
 
 In confirmation of this etymology, it may be observed, that the 
 word suppose is often used in the Scotch dialect for though : — 
 
 Yone slae, suppose thou think it sour, 
 
 May satisfie to slokkin 
 Thy drouth now. Alex. Montgomery. 
 
 Stories to rede ar delectabil 
 
 Suppois that they be nocht but fabil. Barbour. 
 
 370. The instances here given of and, if, and though, may suffice ordinath-es. 
 to show how the part of speech called a conjunction, has arisen, in 
 the development of the powers of language, out of more circuitous 
 modes of expression, by whole sentences or phrases. In another part 
 of this work, the same principle will be illustrated by tracing histo- 
 
218 OF CONJUNCTIONS. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 rically the growth of our other conjunctions. There is a class of 
 words, however, which demands notice here, and which Mr. Harris 
 says " may be properly called adverbial conjunctions, because they 
 participate the nature both of adverbs and conjunctions — of conjunc- 
 tions as they join sentences ; of adverbs as they denote the attributes 
 of time and place." Such are when, where, whence, whither, whenever, 
 wherever, &c. Upon the principle which I have adopted, these are 
 to be called conjunctions when they conjoin sentences ; but the name 
 adverbial is not at all distinctive, because many other conjunctions 
 have occasionally an adverbial use ; and many prepositions when 
 used conjunctionally serve to mark time or place. The scheme of 
 arrangement which Harris has followed, is principally directed to the 
 logical connection of sentences ; but the connections of time and place 
 are merely physical, and should therefore form a class apart. The 
 term ordinative, which Vossius applies to deinde, postea, &c, may not 
 improperly designate the whole of this class. 
 
 Thus, among ordinatives of time we should reckon whiles, till, o that,, 
 or, be : — 
 
 His Lord nold he neuer forsake 
 
 Whiles he ware oliue. Amis and Amiloun. 
 
 Full ofte drinkes shee, 
 Till ye may see 
 
 The teares nan down her cheeke. 
 
 Gammer Gurton's Needle. 
 Al the day and al the nyht 
 
 that sprong the day lyht. Geste of Kyng Horn. 
 
 Sathanas Y bynde the, her shalt thou lay, 
 
 that come Domesday. Christ's Descent to Hell. 
 
 He it is my dedly foo ; 
 
 He schal abeyen it or he goo. Richard Coer de Lion-. 
 
 Your madynis than sail haue your geir 
 Put in gude ordour and effeir 
 
 Ilk morning or yow ryse. Philotus-i- 
 
 The supper done than vp ye ryse, 
 To gang ane quhyle as is the gyse ; 
 Be ye haue rowmit ane alley thryse 
 
 It is ane myle almaist. Ibid. 
 
 So, where is an ordinative of place in the following passage :-=- 
 
 He rails 
 
 Even there, where merchants most do congregate. Shakspeare. 
 
 The ordinals, which I have included in the class of pronominal 
 adjectives, such as first, second, &c, necessarily imply connection, and 
 consequently the adverbs formed from them, are easily employed with 
 a conjunctional force, as primb, secundo, tertib, when placed at the 
 beginning of sentences. The same also is to be observed of the 
 adverbs used as relatives to these antecedents, such as deinde, item, 
 puis, next, syne, lastly, &c. "Deinde," says Vossius, "cum verbo 
 
CHAP. XII. J OF CONJUNCTIONS. 219 
 
 jungitur, ad circumstantiam tempons indicandum, adverbium est: 
 Gonjunctio autem, ciim tantum ad orationis jnncturum pertinet." 
 
 Accepit conditionem ; dein quaestum occipit. Terentius. 
 
 Pergratum mihi feceris ; spero item Sesevolae, &c. Cicero. 
 
 lis font estat d'aller a Orleans, a Blois, puis a Tours. Diet, de V Academie. 
 First ae caper, syne anither. Burns. 
 
 371. It remains to be observed, that some conjunctions are used R«dm>D- 
 singly, and others in a succession of two or more. Thus we may 
 
 say, " John and William came," or " loth John and William came," 
 or loth John and William, and also James came. — " It is ordained 
 that proclamation be made, and that the judgment be recorded, 
 and furthermore that the record be transmitted." Where two or 
 more succeed each other with a mutual relation, there is sometimes 
 a fixed order in the succession; ex.gr. " as — so" "so — that:" 
 " when — then" &c. On this subject Vossius thus speaks — " Con- 
 junction! etiam accidit ordo ; secundum quem alias sunt prcepositivce, 
 ut et. nam; alias postpositivce, ut quoque, autem ; alias communes, 
 ut equidem, itaque. Igitur ssepius postponitur. Enim etiam est par- 
 ticula prsepositiva, Terent. Phor. act v. sc. viii. Enim nequeo solus." 
 Ad postpositivas etiam pertinent encliticas. Ex his, que interdum 
 alteri verbo jungitur quam nativus verborum ordo exigebat : ut apud 
 Hokat. lib. ii. od. 19 : — 
 
 Ore pedes tetigitque crura. 
 
 Pro cruraque tetigit. These however are matters depending on the 
 particular idiom of each language, and not governed by the philosophy 
 of general grammar. 
 
 372. The case is different with the pleonasms and cumulations of Cumulations, 
 conjunctions. These occur in all languages, and they therefore clearly 
 
 arise out of principles common to the human mind in different 
 countries. Hence Vossius speaks of expletive conjunctions — " Ex- 
 pletives sunt, quae nulla, necessitate sentential, sed explendi tantum 
 gratia usurpantur. Ut quae metri vel ornatus caussa, inseruntur. 
 Sallust in Catil. Verilm enimverb is demum mihi vivere, etfrui animd 
 videter; ubi verum redundat." Virgil in xii: — 
 Equidem merui nee deprecor inquit. 
 
 Plena fuerit sententia, licet equidem tollas." To this head are to be 
 referred such expressions as " an if:" — 
 
 ■ Well I know 
 
 The clerk will ne'er wear hair on's face that had it. 
 He will an' if he live to be a man : 
 
 where either an or if is redundant ; for they both signify the same, 
 and Johnson is wrong in supposing that an 1 in this instance is a con- 
 traction of and. Vossius refers these redundancies to the custom of 
 ancient writers, " Nempe is veterum mos fuit, ut interdum conjunge- 
 rent voces idem signiflcantes." But they are not peculiar to any age 
 
220 OF CONJUNCTIONS. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 or nation : they are the result of hasty and inconsiderate habits of 
 speech, which, it is true, are more common in the first formation of a 
 language, than in more cultivated and civilized periods of history. 
 Cumulation, however, is not always redundancy . When we find a 
 sentence beginning thus — " but nevertheless if" the conjunction but 
 connects it with what goes before, and if with some subsequent sen- 
 tence, and the word nevertheless alone may be called redundant, and 
 yet not strictly so, since it adds a great force and emphasis to the 
 word but.. In the Greek language, this cumulation of conjunctions is 
 frequent ; and it is sometimes explained by an ellipsis. Thus Hoogeven 
 says — " Hoc modo a\Xa vvvye redditur nunc maocime, suppressa per 
 ellipsin vocula, elt: ore. Ita Sophocl. in Electr. v. 413 : — 
 
 ' Q, Qioi <xu.tqoooi ffvyyivitrQi y aXXoc vvv ! 
 
 v O Dii patrii, adeste nunc maxime, vel nunc saltern!: 
 
 Plenior structura est "£2 Qeol 7rarpwot, enrors avyyiveadi fxoi> aXKa 
 vvvye avyykveade\ — Dii patrii, si unquam alias mihi adfuistis, at 
 nunc adeste saltern ! 
 
 And so much for the conjunction, which receives its grammatical 
 character neither from the form nor position of the word, but from its 
 office in connecting sentences with each other, enunciative or pas- 
 sionate, according to their different modes of relation. 
 
( 221 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 OF ADVERBS. 
 
 373. Different grammarians have arranged the Adverb in different Order of 
 parts of their systems. Apollonius, followed by Priscian, treats of them? 8 
 it after the preposition and before the conjunction and interjection. 
 Scaliger also places it after the preposition. Manutius places it 
 between the verb and the participle ; Harris after the participle and 
 before the article. Most of the ancient grammarians, however, rank 
 it as next preceding the preposition, conjunction, and interjection. In 
 this order they are followed by Vossius : and I am not sure that it 
 may not be the best arrangement ; but in our own language, and per- 
 haps in others, there are many words used as adverbs, the explanation 
 of which may appear more obvious and intelligible, when they are 
 employed as prepositions or conjunctions. In this view, therefore, it 
 may not be amiss that the consideration of the adverb should be post- 
 poned to that of the other two classes ; but as there is no absolute 
 dependence of any one of these classes on either of the two others, the 
 order of their arrangement is comparatively unimportant. 
 
 374. Mr. Tooke advanced a far more serious objection against the Tooke> 
 prevalent doctrines concerning this part of speech, when he asserted, ° jec lon ' 
 " that neither Harris, nor any other grammarian, seemed to have any 
 clear notion of the nature and character of the adverb." After this 
 he proceeded to give his own notions, not of the adverb in general, 
 but of a number of adverbs in particular, from which, and from what 
 he had before said of the conjunctions and prepositions, he left his 
 readers to collect that knowledge which, in his opinion, no gramma- 
 rian beside himself had ever acquired. As this does not appear to 
 be a very fair way of treating the grammatical student, I shall endea- 
 vour to pursue a more satisfactory method, even at the hazard of 
 adopting, from the ancient grammarians, some of those notions which 
 appeared to Mr. Tooke so obscure, 
 
 375. The adverb was originally so called, because it was added to Definition, 
 the verb, to modify its force and meaning ; hence the Greek writers 
 defined it thus : ^Trtpprjfxa tan fxepog \6yov ukXltov, IttI to prj/Jia 
 tyiv avcKpopav typv. — " The adverb is an indeclinable part of speech, 
 having relation to the verb." The question of its being indeclinable or 
 not, is unimportant in the present investigation, since this circumstance 
 depends on the idiom of a particular language ; but the relation which 
 the adverb bears to the verb depends on the Science of Universal 
 Grammar : and this relation is stated by most of the ancient gram- 
 marians as the peculiar property of the adverb. Donatus makes it 
 
222 OF ADVERBS. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 the only characteristic of this part of speech : Adverbium est pars 
 oratlonls, quce adjecta verbo slgnlficatlonem ejus aut complet, aut mutat, 
 aut mlnult. " The adverb is a part of speech, which being added to 
 a verb, either completes, or diminishes, or alters its signification." 
 Vossius, however, observes, that the adverb is added not only to 
 verbs, but to nouns and participles; and, consequently, that its name 
 must be understood to have been given to it, not from the use to 
 which it is always applied, but from that for which it most generally 
 serves. Non soils adjlcltur verbis, sed etlam nominibus et partlclplls : 
 nomen igltur acceplt non ex eo quod semper, sed quod plurimum fit. By 
 the word nouns, Vossius, as he afterwards explains it, means adjec- 
 tives, both nominal, pronominal, and participial. " We say," adds he, 
 " bene dlsserens, as well as bene dicer e, and bene doctus" And so we 
 may say, prorsus meus, propemodum suus, et magls nostras, as well as, 
 prorsus amicus, propemodlum liber, magls Romanus, &c. For want of 
 a clear and intelligible definition of the adverb, some writers have un- 
 doubtedly exposed themselves to the sarcasm of Tooke, who thus 
 •translates a sentence of Servius : Omnls pars oratlonls, " every word," 
 quando deslnlt esse quod est, " when a grammarian knows not what to 
 make of it," mlgrat In adverbium, " he calls an adverb." It is impos- 
 sible to avoid these errors, unless we first establish a definition of the 
 adverb, to which, as a test, the various classes of words properly com- 
 prehended by different grammarians under this common designation 
 may be applied. I venture therefore, with all becoming diffidence, to 
 propose the following : — An adverb is a part of speech added to a 
 perfect sentence, for the purpose of modifying primarily the conception 
 expressed by a verb, an adjective nominal or pronominal, or a participle ; 
 or secondarily, that expressed by another adverb. In explicating 
 this definition, I shall consider, first, the sort of sentence to which 
 an adverb may be added ; secondly, the modifications which it may 
 effect ; and, thirdly, the modes by which such modifications may be 
 expressed. 
 Sentences 376. I. — First, I say, the adverb is added to a perfect sentence, con- 
 
 added, verting it, if categorical, from a pure into a modal one : and by a 
 
 perfect sentence I here mean one which either enunciates some truth, or 
 expresses some passion with its object. Therefore, even to a simple 
 imperative the adverb may be added, since a perfect sense is expressed 
 without it, and its addition only serves to modify the verb. Thus the 
 word " fly !" is, in effect, a perfect sentence, for it implies an agent and 
 an act, and it couples the conception of the act of ■flying with the con- 
 ception of the person addressed, if not in the perception of the speaker, 
 at least in his volition. To this sentence, therefore, an adverb may be 
 added consistently with my definition, and we may say, " fly quickly !" 
 After this explanation of the passionate sentence, it is scarcely necessary 
 to explain the enunciative. When the verb expresses action or passion, 
 there can be no difficulty : thus when Macbeth says : — 
 After life's fitful fever he sleeps well, 
 
CHAP. XIII.] OF ADVERBS. 223 
 
 there can be no difficulty in understanding that the adverb well modifies 
 the verb sleeps. A question, however, may arise, where the verb 
 merely expresses existence ; as, in the line just quoted, if the expression 
 had been " he is well," it might be questioned whether well was an 
 adverb or an adjective. A similar remark may be made on such 
 expressions as " he is asleep" " he is awake" &c. It is true that in 
 the English language these and many other such words have an 
 adverbial form, and cannot be employed in immediate connection with 
 substantives, as "a well man," an " asleep man," or an " awake man;" 
 yet where they thus form the predicates of verbs, they are, in effect, 
 adjectives. "He is well" corresponds exactly with "he is healthy" — 
 " he is asleep" with " he is sleeping " — " he is awake " with, " he is 
 waking :" and in a question of Universal Grammar, the idiomatic form 
 of the words cannot at all decide the question. When I say the sen- 
 tence must be perfect, I mean it must be perfect in the mind; in 
 expression, a part or even the whole of it may be understood. A part 
 is understood when the mind evidently supplies what is necessary to 
 complete the sentence, as in the animated lines of Sir Walter 
 Scott : — 
 
 On Stanley I— On !— 
 
 Were the last words of Marmion. 
 
 Here the adverb on manifestly refers to some verb understood in the 
 mind, such as "march," "drive," "rush," or the like. The verb is 
 suppressed, because it is indifferent to the speaker; the adverb is 
 expressed, because it is of the utmost importance ; because to the 
 thoughts and feelings of the dying hero the mode of getting at the 
 enemy was immaterial ; but to get at them by some means or other 
 was his most eager wish. The whole of the sentence is understood, 
 when the adverb is responsive : as, " Will you come ? — Yes." " When 
 will you come? — Presently." "How often did he come? — Once." 
 For these answers mean, " I will come certainly "■ — " I will come 
 presently " — " He came once." And consequently the adverbs, yes, 
 presently, and once, are to be taken as modifying the verbs " will come " 
 and " did come," respectively. 
 
 377. II. — The adverb, I say, is used to modify primarily a verb, an Modification, 
 adjective nominal or pronominal, or a participle ; or secondarily, another 
 adverb. As Harris calls the verb, adjective, and participle, " attributives 
 of the first order," he, by parity of reason, denominates the adverb "an 
 attributive of a secondary order," or "an attributive of an attributive." 
 Harris, indeed, justly argues that the word 'ETrtppfytm is of the same 
 force and meaning as these phrases ; for I have already shown that the 
 word r Pr/fta is used by many writers to signify not only what is com- 
 monly called a verb, but also what are called adjectives and participles. 
 Thus Ammoxius says, /caret tovto to an ^air 6 fxtvoy, to pev KAAOS, 
 teal AIKAI02, icai oaa TOiavTa 'PHMATA \eyeo§ai, teal ovk 
 'ONOMATA. — "According to this signification" (that is, of denoting 
 the attributes of substance and the predicates in propositions), " the 
 

 224 OF ADVERBS. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 words, fair, just, and the like, are called verts and not nouns." And 
 so Ppjscian, speaking of the Stoics, says, " Participium connumerantes 
 verbis, participiale verbum vocant." "Beckoning the participle 
 among verbs, they call it a 'participial verb." Whatever may be 
 thought of this reasoning, it at least agrees with the proposition, that 
 the adverb is employed to modify the participle, the adjective, and the 
 verb. On the other hand, the adverb is not emploj^ed to modify the 
 substantive ; because that is the function of the adjective, or of the 
 article. Let us then consider the parts of speech which are primarily 
 modified by the adverb, viz. : the verb and the adjective, taking the 
 latter term in its widest sense. 
 Of the srerb. 378. The verb, it must be remembered, asserts or manifests exist- 
 ence, either simply or together with some attribute of action or passion. 
 The adverb, therefore, may either modify the attribute involved in the 
 verb, or it may modify the mere assertion of existence. When it 
 modifies the attribute, its operation is exactly similar to what will pie- 
 sently be described in regard to the adjective. The conception of 
 running is modified by the adverb swiftly, in the proposition " he runs 
 swiftly," precisely as it is by the adjective swift in the proposition "he 
 is a swift runner." The case is somewhat different when the adverb is 
 considered as modifying the assertion of existence. If this be done 
 with reference to the corporeal conceptions of place and time, we have, 
 as to place, such positive conceptions as those marked by the adverbs 
 here and there ; and such relative conceptions as those marked by the 
 adverbs where and whence. If I say that a given event happened 
 here, my assertion is positive and is limited to a certain point of 
 space, and by necessary implication contradicts the assertion not only 
 that it did not happen at all, but that it happened at any other place 
 than the one indicated. So with regard to time : if I say that a 
 certain event is happening now, my assertion is positive and is limited 
 to the present time ; if I say it happened yesterday, it is equally posi- 
 tive and limited to a certain time past. Again, if I say the event in 
 question happened where some other event had occurred, the local 
 adverb where is relative ; and if I say it happened when some other did, 
 the temporal adverb when is also relative. It is scarcely necessary to 
 add that local and temporal conceptions may be adverbially expressed 
 under an endless variety of circumstances. The event in question may 
 occur aboard, or ashore, aloft, or below, abroad, or at home ; the ship may 
 be cut a drift ; the army may be marching homewards ; the battle may 
 cease awhile, it may be begun anew, it may terminate suddenly, &c. &c. 
 &c. So, the assertion of existence contained in a verb may be modified 
 by various mental conceptions, and these also may be expressed 
 adverbially. Thus, in a proposition, the assertion if not simply affir- 
 mative (which of course needs no modification) may be modified by a 
 negative as not, ne, nee ; or it may be modified as to certainty, if clear, 
 by the adverbs indeed, certainly, and if doubtful by the adverbs perhaps, 
 forsan, &c. ; or, as to mode, by the adverbs thus, so, as, &c. : or the 
 
CHAP. XIII.] OF ADVERBS. 225 
 
 assertion may be put interrogatively by the adverbs how, why, where, 
 when ; or responsively by the adverbs yes or no. The connection of 
 propositions in an argument, and particularly of the premises with the 
 conclusion, may be marked by such words as ergo, consequently, there- 
 fore, which some grammarians treat as adverbs, though others (and 
 perhaps more accurately) hold to be conjunctions; a remark which 
 applies generally to the adverbs called relative. 
 
 379. The term adjective, as I have said, is here to be taken in its Of the _ 
 widest sense, as including not only the adjective simple, or proper, but 3ec lve " 
 also the participle, or participial adjective, and the pronominal adjec- 
 tive. It is manifest that all the attributes which these various classes 
 
 of words express are capable of modification. Thus, a house which is 
 " loftv," may be " surprisingly lofty," or " very lofty," or " moderately 
 lofty." And in like maimer we may speak of " a remarkably intelli- 
 gent youth," an " over indulgent parent," " a truly affectionate friend." 
 So, when we use a participle, or a pronominal adjective, we may 
 modify it by the aid of an adverb, as " much obliged," " greatly in- 
 debted," " wholly yours," " absolutely mine," " nobly born," " well bred," 
 " highly girted," " universally respected," " little moved," " less affected," 
 " not so energetic," " equally judicious," " how admirable !" " thus far," 
 " no further." In all these instances, it is obvious, that the attribute 
 expressed by the adjective undergoes some modification from the 
 adverb. In truth, we form a double conception, as, first, a conception 
 of loftiness with reference to the house, and, secondly, a conception of 
 surprise with reference to the loftiness ; so that the sentence " the 
 house is surprisingly lofty" resolves itself into these other two sen- 
 tences, " the house is lofty," and " the loftiness is surprising." Mr. 
 Han-is, therefore, had great reason to call the adverb an attributive of an 
 attributive ; for, in the latter of these two sentences, we find the word 
 " surprising" represents an attribute of that loftiness, which, in the 
 prior sentence, was considered as an attribute of the house. It is not 
 the house altogether which excites surprise, but only its quality of lof- 
 tiness. A house may be both lofty and surprising, without being sur- 
 prisingly lofty. These modifications of an attribute may regard either 
 its quantity or its quality. Its quantity may be modified positively, 
 that is, simply ; or relatively, that is, comparatively. The adverbs thus 
 used positively in regard to quantity continuous, are such as, much y 
 little, sufficiently, parum, satis, &c. ; in regard to quantity discrete, such 
 as twice, thrice, semel, decies, &c. Those used relatively, if by way of 
 intension, are such as more, nimis, valde, &c. ; if by way of remission, 
 such as less, vix, &c. The quality of an attribute may be modified 
 positively by such adverbs as well, ill, nobly, bene, male, fortiter, &e. ; 
 or relatively, in regard to degree, by such as rather, potius, excessively, 
 &c. ; and in regard to similitude, by as, so, adeb, &c. 
 
 380. Such being the primary uses of the adverb, it is easy to con- Secondary 
 ceive that the secondary use is similar. As the adjective modifies the u>e ' 
 substantive, and the adverb modifies the adjective, so mav a second 
 
 2. Q 
 
Advert 
 
 226 OF ADVERBS. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 adverb be applied to the former with the same power of modification. 
 As the word admirably may be prefixed to good, so may very be pre- 
 fixed to them both together ; and we may say " a very admirably good 
 discourse ;" in which, and the like instances, the analysis is similar to 
 what I have before stated. The discourse is good, the goodness is 
 admirable, the admiration is extreme. 
 improper 381. To the classes of words which have been properly compre- 
 
 hended under the title of adverbs, some grammarians have added 
 others which have no legitimate title to that appellation. Hence 
 among the twenty-eight classes enumerated by Hickes, the twenty- 
 seven by Manutius, the twenty-one by Charisius, and those of other 
 writers, we find enough to justify the sarcasm of Tooke, and to 
 explain, if not to justify, the grave designation of the Stoics, who called 
 this part of speech liavMKrrjy ; because, as Charisius says, " Omnia in 
 se capit, quasi collata per satiram concessa sibi rerum varietate." 
 Thus some reckon as adverbs, the nouns substantive Roma?, domi, casu, 
 and the like ; some the nouns adjective vili, caro ; some the pronouns 
 mecum, tecum, nobiscum, vobiscum ; some the verbs used interjectionally, 
 age, amabo, quceso, and some the mere interjections heus ! utinam I 
 ecce ! &c. These aberrations from grammatical principle may perhaps 
 be accounted for, in part from the want of a clear and intelligible 
 definition of the part of speech called an adverb, and in part from 
 a mistaken impression of some writers, that adverbs and interjections 
 are words of too insignificant a character to deserve serious attention. 
 " Interjectio " (says Caramuel) " posset ad adverbium reduci, sed quia 
 majoribus nostris placuit illam distinguere, non est cur in re tarn tenia 
 haereamus." " The interjection might be reckoned among adverbs, 
 but since our predecessors have been pleased to distinguish it from 
 them, we need not hesitate about so trifling a matter." However these 
 errors may have arisen, it must be confessed that they have been 
 shared by writers of no mean reputation. Vossius says, " Interjec- 
 tiones a Grsecis ad adverbia referuntur, atque eos sequitur etiam 
 Boethius." Ben Jonson says, "Prepositions are a peculiar kind of 
 adverbs, and ought to be referred thither ;" and Bishop Wilkins says, 
 that " the difference between prepositions and adverbs is so nice, that 
 it is hard in some cases to distinguish them." Yet it is manifest that a 
 preposition can no more be considered as a peculiar kind of adverb, 
 than a substantive can be considered as a peculiar kind of adjective or 
 verb : for the proper function of the preposition is to modify a concep- 
 tion of substance ; and the proper function of the adverb is to modify 
 a conception of attribute, either alone, or combined with an assertion : 
 but the part of speech which names a conception of substance is the 
 noun substantive ; the part of speech which names a conception of 
 attribute is a noun adjective ; and the part of speech which asserts is 
 the verb. Again, as to interjections, they do not serve to modify either 
 noun or verb ; but are interjected, as it were, between different nouns 
 or verbs, and as Vossius says, " Citra verbi opem, sententiam complent ;' 
 
CHAP. XIII.] OF ADVERBS. 227 
 
 for though, in certain instances, the interjection may, both in signification 
 and construction, supply the place of a verb, yet this, in no respect, 
 modifies the signification of the following verb, but merely affects its 
 construction in the sentence. Those authors, too, who do not differ in 
 regard to the characteristics of whole classes, often seem to err strangely 
 in allotting a particular word to its proper class. Dr. Johnson, a 
 scholar certainly of great acquirements, designates as nouns substantive 
 the words pell-mell, ding-dong, handy -dandy, pit-a-pat, and see-saw, 
 when in the very examples which he quotes they are used as adverbs ; 
 and this is the more remarkable because he designates other words, of 
 the very same formation and use, adverbs ; ex. gr. helter-skelter, which 
 certainly approaches as nearly to pell-mell, in its grammatical use, as it 
 does in the mode of its formation, and in its general import. The 
 acute and ingenious De Brosses calls the French chez an adverb, 
 which is most manifestly a preposition, for chez moi, and apud me v are 
 phrases exactly similar in construction. Even the learned Vossius calls 
 the Latin mecastor an adverb, and R. Stephanus terms it " jurandi 
 adverbium." Now mecastor is either from the Greek fia, and Castor, the 
 name of a deity, and then it is literally, "No, by Castor!" or else it is 
 " Me Castor adjuvet /" So help me Castor ! and in either case it is an 
 inter jectional oath, used as a common expletive in conversation. Thus 
 we find in Terence, ' ' Salve, mecastor, Parmeno ;" where mecastor can- 
 not by any ingenuity be made to modify the verb salve, or indeed any 
 other word ; but is truly and properly an interjection, which all words 
 of the same kind must be, such as Gadso ! which though Mr. Tooke 
 distinctly calls an oath, yet he preposterously reckons amonoj the adverbs. 
 Gadso ! and ' Odso ! were abbreviations of " by God it is so !" or " is 
 it so, by God ?" for men happily shrink from their own profaneness, 
 and rather reduce their words to unmeaning exclamations, than advert 
 seriously to their original import. As to the obscene Italian expression 
 to which Tooke alludes, it had probably nothing to do with the inter- 
 jection Gadso, however it may have furnished a hint to the unpolished 
 satire of Ben Jonson, in the passage quoted from one of his plays. 
 
 382. III. — Having thus considered the various modifications of an Adverbial 
 attributive, which adverbs are calculated to effect, I come to examine p ^ 
 the different modes by which such modifications may be expressed ; 
 and as I have spoken of prepositional and conjunctional phrases, so I 
 think it advisable here to notice certain adverbial phrases, which in 
 process of time have become, or may become adverbs. By an 
 adverbial phrase, I mean any combination of words, which in a complex 
 sentence may stand in the place of an adverb. Thus we may say 
 " this happened afterwards," or " this happened long afterwards," or 
 " this happened many days afterwards," or " this happened not many 
 days afterwards." In the first case the adverb afterwards modifies the 
 verb " happened ;" in all the other cases the same adverb afterwards 
 is modified, first by the adjective long used adverbially, then by the 
 adjective and substantive many days forming an adverbial phrase, or 
 
 Q2 
 
228 OF ADVERBS. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 standing in the place of an adverb ; and lastly by the adverb, adjective, 
 and substantive, not many days, which in like manner may be said to 
 form an adverbial phrase, or to stand in the place of an adverb. So in 
 Lord Berners' translation of Froissart, executed by command of 
 King Henry VIII., and printed in his reign, the following passage 
 occurs, fol. cxcix. b. " Nowe the Duke of Berrey commauncleth me the 
 contrary ; for he chargeth me incontynent his letters sene, that I shulcle 
 reyse the syege." In this passage incontynent is an adverb modifying 
 the verb reyse ; and the letters sene is a phrase, (similar in construction 
 to the Latin ablative absolute, as it is termed, visis epistolis,) which 
 modifies the adverb incontynent, a word at that time used where we 
 should say immediately. 
 
 Thus, in the romance of The Foure Sonnes of Aimon, printed in 
 1554, we find — 
 
 Now up Ogyer, and you Duke Naymes, light on horseback incontinent. 
 
 Adverbial phrases are in another point of view material to the con- 
 sideration of adverbs properly so called. By comparing different 
 languages, we not only find that a certain phrase in one language cor- 
 responds to a different phrase in another language ; but that phrases in 
 the one correspond to words in the other. Thus in comparing the 
 French with the Italian we not only find such expressions as a chaudes 
 larmes, answering to a dirotte lagrime ; or a gorge deploy ee, to alia 
 smascellata ; but we also find a tatons rendered by tentone, a peu pres 
 by quasi, &c, &c. The variety of phrases which may be found in dif- 
 ferent languages corresponding to one and the same adverb, is truly 
 remarkable ; of which those answering to our adverb suddenly afford a 
 pregnant example. The striking expressions of St. Paul, 'Ev arofiw, 
 iv piirr} 6(f)da\ij.ov — "in momento," " in ictu oculi,"* have, of course, 
 been imitated in most European languages ; as the English "in a 
 moment" — " in the twinkling of an eye;" the French, " en un din d'ceil ; 
 the Italian " in un hatter d'occhio ;" and to these may be added many 
 analogous expressions, as the Spanish " de repente ;" the Italian " di 
 primo lancio," and " tutto ad un tratto ;" the French " tout d'un coup," 
 " en un tourne main," " sur le champ ;" the Latin " e vestigio;" the old 
 English "in a trice? "as who saith treis" " at a thought,'''' "in the 
 space of a luke" " all anone" "all at once" &c. &c, of which I shall 
 hereafter give examples. 
 Compound 383. The first step towards expressing more briefly the modification 
 of an attributive, may be observed in certain compound words, which 
 unite the principal conceptions expressed in a phrase. Of such our 
 old English writers present some examples which have now become 
 obsolete, such as foot-hot, sothfast , and others still in use, as forthwith, 
 peradventure, &c. 
 
 The maister hunte anon, fotehote, 
 
 With his home blewe three mote. Chaucer's Dream 
 
 * 1 Corinth, xv. 52. 
 
 words. 
 
CHAP. XIII.] OF ADVERBS. 229 
 
 " Foothot" says Mr. Tooke, "means immediately, instantaneously," 
 and so far he is undoubtedly right; but whether hot, means, as he 
 supposes, heated, or as Waeton suggests, hit against the ground, that 
 is, stamped, may be matter of doubt. " In the twinkling of an eye," 
 " in the space of a look," are expressions used to express the shortest 
 possible lapse of time : and " a stamp of the foot," may well be sup- 
 posed to convey a similar idea of brief duration. 
 
 Dunbar, in his Goldin Terge, has the following lines : — 
 
 And suddenlie, in the space of a hike, 
 
 All was hyne went, titer was but wilderness ; 
 Ther was nae mair but bird, and bank, and brake. 
 In twinckling of an ee, to scbip they went. 
 Sothfast is the substantive sooth, compounded (as in the word sted- 
 fasfy with fast, i. e. firm, and so means truthful, or as sure as truth. 
 In a sort of dramatic poem, probably of the thirteenth or fourteenth 
 century, on Chris? s Descent into Hell (Harl. MSS. 2253, f. 55. b.), are 
 these lines, in which it is used adverbially : — 
 
 And so wes seyde to Habraham, 
 That wes sothfast holy man. 
 
 In the Pricke of Conscience (see Warton, v. i. p. 258), it is used 
 adjectivally : — 
 
 Thou mercyfull and gracious God is, 
 
 Thou rightwis, and thou sothfast. 
 
 Adverbs may be compounded of two or more words. "Utin aliis 
 classibus," says Vossius, " ita quoque in adverbiis, compositorum alia 
 fiunt e duobus, ut perdiu, abhinc, alia e pluribus ut forsitan. Nam, ut 
 for sit ex fors et sit, quasi forte sit ; acforsan ex fors et an, quod et in 
 fortassean ; ita forsitan ex tribus istis fors, sit, an. And thus it is in 
 English. We have together formed of to and gather; and we have 
 altogether formed of all, to, and gather. So in French tout a fait, 
 " altogether," from tout, a, and fait ; in Italian nondimeno, " neverthe- 
 less," from -non, di, and me.no, &c. ; in German vielleicht, " perhaps," 
 from viel, much; and leicht, easily; nimmermehr, "nevermore," from 
 nie, immer, and mehr, &c. 
 
 In forming compounds of this nature, all parts of speech (except 
 interjections) .are employed. " Nulla est vocum classis," says Vossius, 
 " ex qua non adverbium componatur." Thus a composite adverb may 
 be formed in any of the following ways : — 
 
 i. From a pronoun and substantive, as quare, from qua and re. 
 
 ii. From an adjective and substantive, as postridie, from postero and 
 die. 
 
 iii. From an adverb, substantive, and adjective, as nudiustertius, from 
 nunc, dies, and tertius 
 
 iv. From a substantive and verb, as pedetentim, from pede and tentare. 
 
 v. From a participle and substantive, as perendie, from peremptd and 
 die. 
 

 230 OF ADVERBS. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 vi. From an adverb and adjective, as nimirum, from ne and mirum. 
 vii. From a preposition and substantive, as obviam, from 6b and viam. 
 viii. From a pronoun and adverb, as alibi, from alio and ibi. 
 ix. From a pronoun and preposition, as adhuc, from ad and hoc. 
 x. From two verbs, as scilicet, from scire and /kce£. 
 xi. From two adverbs, as etiamnum, from etiam and ramc. 
 xii. From an adverb and a verb, as deinceps, from dein and capio. 
 xiii. From a preposition and adverb, as abhinc, from ab and Tmzc. 
 xiv. From a conjunction and adverb, as etiam, from e£ and jam. 
 Vossius ranks among compound adverbs those which might other- 
 wise be said to be inflected, that is, formed from other words, by the 
 addition of an adverbial particle, like our prefix a, or termination ly ; 
 as tantisper, from tantus and per ; quandoque, from quando and que, 
 &c. So we find not only scienter, from sciens and ter, but even 
 Catiliniter, from Catilina ; not only jucunde, from jucundus, but 2W- 
 liane, from Tullius. 
 Words em- 384. Thus by degrees we arrive at those single words which, 
 Adjectives, whether compound or simple, are called adverbs, and constitute, as 
 such, a distinct part of speech. If it be asked what sorts of words 
 may be employed, as adverbs, to modify other attributives, the proper 
 answer is — all sorts. For the expression of Servius, though ridiculed 
 by Tooke, is literally true : " Omnis pars orationis migrat in adverbium." 
 " Every part of speech is capable of being converted into an adverb." 
 
 From what has already been said, it is manifest that an adjective 
 may be used adverbially. Let us suppose that it is necessary to enun- 
 ciate these three propositions successively : — 
 i. A certain quantity exists, 
 ii. The quantity is large, 
 iii. The largeness is sufficient. 
 We have here three conceptions, viz., quantity, largeness, and 
 sufficiency. The first is only considered as a substance ; the second is 
 considered as an attribute in one instance, and as a substance in th( 
 other ; and the third is only considered as an attribute. Now, if w< 
 unite these three sentences in one, and say there is " a sufficiently largt 
 quantity," we, in fact, convert the adjective "sufficient" into an 
 adverb. In some instances this difference in the employment of the 
 word, is attended with a correspondent inflection or change in the 
 form — as in English the adjective sufficient is inflected or changed into 
 the adverb sufficiently ; but this neither prevails in all languages nor in 
 all adverbs of the same language : and is, indeed, a circumstance often 
 appearing to be perfectly accidental or capricious. Again, the adjec- 
 tives thus employed sometimes remain unchanged in form, but lose in 
 practice theii adjectival use, either partially or altogether. These 
 circumstances, it is true, depend on the idioms of particular languages ; 
 but it is not the less important to notice some of them, because there 
 is no more common source of error among grammarians than the con- 
 founding of what is universal in language with what is particular, the 
 
 
CHAP. XITI.l OP ADVERBS. 231 
 
 scientific rule with the accidental exception. This will appear from 
 many instances in the class of words now under consideration, namely, 
 the adjectives proper, when used as adverbs ; and in order to consider 
 them the more distinctly, I shall notice first the simple miinnected 
 adjectives, then those which have been inflected or changed in form, 
 and lastly those adverbs formerly employed as adjectives, but which at 
 present have wholly or partially lost that character. In the first class 
 may be reckoned such words as much, full, right, scarce, &c. ; in the 
 second such as aloud, around, along, wisely, prudenter, male, &c. ; and in 
 the last such as very, well, &c. Many of these will hereafter receive 
 particular notice : at present it may suffice to consider one of each 
 class. 
 
 385. Much, which in old and provincial English and Scotch appears Much, 
 under the forms of moch, muche, moche, mochell, mochil, muchele, mychel, 
 meikill, michle, muckle, received, in those dialects, a larger adjectival 
 construction than is the modern authorised usage, as may be seen in 
 some of the following examples : — 
 
 Whan the Abhot seeth ham flee, 
 
 That he holt for moch glee. Descript. of Cokaygne. 
 
 With muche Ost he is comyng. Rom. of Kyng Alisaunder. 
 
 Hye and low louyd hym alle, 
 
 Moche honoure to hym was falle. Lyfe of Ipomydon. 
 
 Ther nas nother old neyynge 
 
 So mochell of strength. Rom. of Octovian Imperator. 
 
 Undir heuen nis lond iwisse 
 
 Of so mochil ioi ant blisse. Descript. of Cokaygne. 
 
 And yeld here servise ofte, mid muchele wowe. 
 
 Life of St. Margaret . 
 Dieu mercy, to mychel harme 
 Many knighth there gan hym wime. 
 
 Rom. of Kyng Alisaunder. 
 
 And gif ye will gif me richt nocht, 
 
 The meikill devill gang wi' you. Peblis to the Play. 
 
 Mony a little maks a mickle. North Country Proverb. 
 
 The muckle devil blaw ye south, 
 
 If ye dissemble. Burns. Earnest Cry. 
 
 In the present use of the word much, it has considerable analogy to 
 the Latin multus and multum, the Italian molto and molti, the old 
 French moult, the Portuguese muito and muita ; but though they may 
 all flow from one common source, yet, if so, the channels have mani- 
 festly been divided at an early period : the ch, which distinguishes our 
 much and the Spanish mucho, marking one branch, as distinctly as the 
 It, which characterises the other. Hence it happens that our idiomatic 
 use of much diners in many points from the use of multus or multum. 
 Though we use much as an adjective, in connection with an ideal con- 
 ception, such as " much honour," " much glee," " much joy," " much 
 money," we cannot so employ it with a collective term, such as " a 
 
232 OF ADVERBS. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 much army," " a much sum ;" nor with a word designating an indi- 
 vidual object, as "the much Devil;" neither can we translate the 
 Latin " multo mane,"* " much morning," or ''multa nocte',"f "much 
 night ;" nor can we employ it adjectivally with a plural substantive, 
 as " multi ignes," J " much fires." The adverbial use in English seems 
 somewhat capricious. Though much may be always combined with 
 adjectives in the comparative or superlative degree, as " much wiser," 
 "much the bravest," and also with some in the positive, as "much 
 like," "much unlike," we cannot say "much brave" or " much wise." 
 In regard to position, too, there are some differences. The adverb 
 much is placed before a present or past participle, but generally 
 (though with some few exceptions) after a verb : — 
 
 Sad, from my natal hour, my days have ran, 
 
 A much afflicted, much enduring man. Pope. 
 
 It grieveth me much, for your sakes. Ruth, i. 13. 
 
 He doth much keep the statutes of Omn. Micah, vi. 16, marg. 
 
 Mr. Tooke, who says that this word much has " exceedingly gra- 
 velled all our etymologists," derives it from the Anglo-Saxon verb 
 mawan, " to mow," of which, he says, the regular praeterperfect is 
 mow, and the past participle mowen. " Omit the participial termina- 
 tion en," continues he, " and there will remain mow, which means 
 simply that which is mown ; and, as the hay, &c, which was mown, 
 was put together in a heap, hence, figuratively, mowe was used in 
 Anglo-Saxon to denote any heap ; and this participle, or substantive, 
 call it which you please — for however classed, it is still the same 
 word, and has the same signification — was pronounced, and therefore 
 written ma, mo, &c, which, being regularly compared, gave ma, maer, 
 maest, mo, more, most, &c. ; and much is merely the diminutive of mo, 
 passing through the gradual changes of mokel, mykel, mochill, muchell, 
 moche, much." Such is the substance of an etymological disquisition, 
 in the course of which Mr. Tooke takes upon him to speak with great 
 contempt of Junius, Wormius, Skinner, and Johnson, and pretends to 
 remove all those difficulties which have so " exceedingly gravelled " 
 other etymologists ! The leading principle in this disquisition is an 
 extraordinary one. It assumes that in the formation of language, the 
 conceptions of distinct action must necessarily have obtained a name 
 before those of quality. Indeed, it is not very clear that Mr. Tooke 
 conceives mankind ever to have acquired conceptions of quality at all. 
 However that may be, the basis of his argument in the present in- 
 stance is a mere arbitrary assumption, neither confii'med by history, 
 nor supported by any rational system of philosophy. The reasoning 
 relative to the words more and most would be at least equally satis- 
 factory if its order were exactly reversed, and the premises made the 
 
 * Alteras (epistolas) Furius multo mane mihi dedit. Cicer. Att. 5, 4. 
 
 f Multa nocte veni ad Pompeium. Cicer. Quint. 2, 8. 
 
 i Hi tanti ignes, tamque multi (sc. sidera). Cicer, N. D. 2. 36. 
 
CHAP. XIII.] 0.F ADVERBS. 233 
 
 conclusion. It is probably true that more is the comparative and most 
 the superlative of an old word ma or mo, which we may admit to have 
 been used as an adjective signifying much. We might argue, therefore, 
 that when much of anything was heaped together it was adjectivally 
 said to be mo ; and thence a heap was substantively called a mowe ; 
 but as hay, when it is cut down, is, in the very act of cutting, heaped 
 together, to cut hay was called to mow, and the hay that was cut was 
 said to be mowed. These opposite trains of reasoning agree in this, 
 that all names must necessarily be supposed to have been given to the 
 conceptions of the human mind, in some one certain order — that is to 
 say, either proceeding from the more general to the more particular, or 
 the contrary. I do not know that this can be positively asserted ; but, 
 if it may be so, still I should incline against Mr. Tooke's etymology. 
 According to him, our rude ancestors could not have informed each 
 other whether a thing was much or little, until after they had invented 
 the art of making hay, had regularly conjugated their verbs, added the 
 participial termination en, taken it away again, and compounded the 
 word (thus unnecessarily prolonged and curtailed) with a syllable im- 
 plying diminution, which was subsequently dropt ; and after all, they 
 could never alter the signification of the word ; but if they talked of 
 much money, or much wisdom, much acuteness, or much absurdity, 
 the word much would only signify the cutting of hay ! Such is his 
 theory : as to his facts, it would be difficult to discover where or 
 when ma was used for a hay-mow, or a barley-mow ; and when we 
 come to derive mokel, muchel, or michil, from mo, we shall be " ex- 
 ceedingly gravelled " to account for the unlucky k and ch which happen 
 to be inserted before the syllable said to be expressive of diminution. 
 That there may be some affinity between mo and much is probable ; 
 but it is not probable that much is an abbreviation of muchel. On the 
 contrary muchil has the appearance of being derived from much. At 
 least, it is certain, that we find much, or mich, as early as we do 
 muchil. Wachter, speaking of these words, says, Simplicissimum est 
 mich quod in antiquissimis dialectis ponitur pro magno et multo, " The 
 most simple is mich, which, in the most ancient dialects, signifies 
 great and much." Thus, in the old Persian, mill was great, mihter 
 greater, mihtras greatest ; whence the sun was called Mithras. The 
 aspirate h was easily converted into the guttural ch, and the palatine k 
 or g. Hence the Greek /ney, in fiiyag ; and the Latin mag, in magnus, 
 magister, &c. ; and as that which is great is usually powerful, we have 
 an infinite number of words from this radical, signifying power, as the 
 Mseso-Gothic and Anglo-Saxon mag an, to be able, which supplies our 
 auxiliaries may and might, the old German machen, and Anglo-Saxon 
 mahan, to make, &c, &c. Again Wachter, speaking of the ancient 
 word mich, says postea invaluit michel, eodem sensu. " Afterwards 
 michel came into use, in the same sense." Hence the Gothic mikils, 
 the Anglo-Saxon micel, the Alamannic mihhil, the Icelandic mikiU, and, 
 possibly, the Greek ^yaKr]. There is no ground for supposing that 
 
234 OF ADVERBS. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 the final syllable el or le is meant, in any of these words, to express 
 diminution ; mucliel is no more the dimimnutive of " much," in signifi- 
 cation, than handle of "hand," or spindle of "spin;" but much and 
 muchel are used eodem sensu, and so were anciently lite and litel. I 
 have at least shown, that much is to be found in English as early as 
 muchel, and that these two words were used indifferently by our most 
 ancient writers. And upon the whole, it is clear, from these authori- 
 ties, that much is the name of a conception of greatness in quantity, 
 quality, or power ; and that when this conception is viewed as the 
 attribute of any substance, the word much is an adjective ; when as 
 the modification of an act or quality, it is an adverb. 
 inflected. 386. Certain adjectives are found in our own and other languages, 
 
 which when combined with or varied by a particle, as our prefix a, 
 our termination ly, the Latin termination ter, or e, or the Italian mente, 
 lose their adjectival, and receive an exclusive adverbial character. 
 Vossius ranks these among compounds, and perhaps (as I have before 
 observed of inflections in general) further research into the origin of the 
 particles so employed may show that all such adverbs are true com- 
 pounds : for the present, however, I shall consider them as inflected ; 
 and of these the class formed by our termination in ly may afford a 
 sufficient illustration. The particle ly is an abbreviation of the adjec- 
 tive like; and the words wisely, gratefully, judiciously, &c, were 
 originally the compound adjectives wiselike, gratefullike, judiciouslike, 
 &c. The termination lyk or lich is common in old English. Thus, in 
 Kyng Alisaunder, we have the adjectives eorthliche (earthly, mortal), 
 ferliche (strange, wonderful), and the adverbs gentiliche (gently), 
 sikerlyk (securely, certainly), theofiiche (like a thief), quyUiche (quick- 
 ly), stilliche (quietly), skarschliche (scarcely), aperteliche (openly). 
 So, in Syr Launfal, 
 
 He gaf gyftys largelyche, 
 
 Gold, and siluer, and clodes ryche. 
 
 And again, in the same poem — 
 
 The lady was brygt as blosme on brere, 
 With eyen gray, with louelych chere. 
 
 This word louelych is the identical word leflich which occurs in one 
 of the most ancient love-songs now existing in English, composed pro- 
 bably about the year 1200. The song begins, " Blow, Northerne 
 Wynd," and the lover describes his mistress 
 With lokkes lefliche and longe. 
 
 Chaucer writes our word, "early," erliche ; as in the Knight's Tale, 
 And tellin her erliche and late. 
 
 In the Description of Cokaygne occurs the adverb meklich (meekly). 
 In the Geste of Kyng Horn we find evenliche (evenly, straightly) used 
 as an adverb : — 
 
 T hou art fair & eke strong. 
 
 & eke euenliche long. 
 
CHAP. XIII.] OF ADVERBS. 235 
 
 This termination, therefore, is not less distinguishable in the old 
 English than it is, as Mr. Tooke observes, in the sister languages — 
 German, Dutch, Danish, and Swedish. The connection of meanings 
 seems to be this : first a substantive conception of the body, then an 
 adjectival or attributive conception of likeness to the body, and lastly 
 an adverbial use of the conception of likeness applied adverbially to an- 
 other attributive. The body (particularly the corpse) is in Mseso- 
 Gothic leik ; ex. gr. " usnemun leik is " — " they took away his body." * 
 In the Anglo-Saxon version of the same text it is &e 5 " hys lie namon." 
 In Frankish and Alamannic a dead body is luhe ; and lih ; in Icelandic 
 lijk; in German leiche ; in Dutch lyk; in Swedish lih; and in old Scotch 
 lyke, whence lykeicake, now corrupted to late icake, the watching of a 
 corpse. The German adjective gleich (like) is, as Wachter observes, 
 the old compound ge-leich, abbreviated; in old German it is lich, 
 gelich ; in Anglo-Saxon lie, gelic ; in Swedi sh lik; in Danish lig ; in Icelandic 
 likr, glikr ; in Dutch lyk. The adjectival or adverbial termination is in 
 German lich, as lieblich; in Dutch lyk, aslieflyk ; in Swedish and Danish 
 lig, as liufiig, lifiig ; in Icelandic legr and ligt, as lieufegr, frithsamlegt. 
 That the name of the conception which we have of " body " should be 
 transferred to the conception of " likeness," is not at all surprising ; for 
 what is so like any person or thing as the very body of that thing, or 
 of that person? Hence, Shakspeare, meaning to intimate that the 
 use of the drama is to represent the exact likeness of living manners, 
 says, it is "to show the very age and body of the time, its form, and 
 pressure ;" as if he had said, " the drama holds up a mirror to the 
 present time, exhibits its age of manhood or decrepitude, represents its 
 very body, the shape which it bears, and the impression which it pro- 
 duces on the mind of the observer, as a seal does on wax, or a statue 
 on the plaster from which a cast is to be taken." Neither is it sur- 
 prising that the adjective "like" should enter into composition with a 
 great number of other adjectives ; for if any attribute could not be 
 exactly predicated of a particular substance, something like that attri- 
 bute might be so ; if a person or thing could not be said to possess 
 exactly a certain quality, it might be said to possess a quality similar, 
 or nearly the same ; if it was not great it might be greatlike ; if not 
 good, godlike, &c. In the Anglo-Saxon we find the termination lie 
 used both adjectively and adverbially, as in the translation of Bede's 
 Ecclesiastical History (book hi. c. 3), " tha lifigendan stanas thsere 
 cyricean, of eorthlicum setlum, to tham heqfonlicum timbre, gebaer ! " 
 " the living stones of the church, from earthly seats, to the heavenly 
 building, it bore." And again (loc. tit.), "tha cyricean wundorlice 
 heold & rihte : " " the church he wondrously held and ruled. The use 
 of this temiination extends indeed much further ; for it contributes to 
 the formation of our pronominal adjectives such, each, and which ; the 
 original signification of these being so-like, one-like, and what-like ; as 
 I shall briefly show : — 
 
 * Mark, vi. 29. 
 
236 OF ADVERBS. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 i. In the Mseso-Gothic swa is " so," and swa leik is " such.' , In 
 the Anglo-Saxon it is contracted to swylc, in the old English to swylke 
 and swiche, and thence to sich and such. And the same is found in the 
 cognate languages : in the old English and Alamannic, it is solich, 
 sulich ; in the Dutch zulk ; in the Swedish slyk ; and in the modern 
 German solche. 
 
 In the romance of Richard Coer de Irion, we have : — 
 
 Kyng Alysaundre ne Charlemayn 
 Hadde neuer swylke a route. 
 
 And Chaucer says : — 
 
 In sioiche a gise as I you tellen shal. 
 
 ii. The words ilk and ilka are to be found in our old writers, and 
 still exist in the Scottish dialect. Ilk was sometimes written iliche, 
 and has been abbreviated to each. The following lines occur in a 
 satirical poem entitled Syr Peni; or, Narracio de Domino Denario 
 (MSS. Cotton. Galb. E. 9) :— 
 
 Dukes, erles, and ilk barowne 
 To serue him er thai ful boune 
 Both biday and nyght. 
 
 In another part of the same poem are these lines : — 
 
 He may by both heuyn and hell 
 And ilka thing that es to sell 
 In erth has he swilk grace ; 
 
 where we see swilk used for " such," and ilka for " every," as it is by 
 Bukks, in his " Twa Dogs :"— 
 
 His honest, sonsie, baws'nt face 
 Aye gat him friends in ilka place, 
 
 iti. Which is, in the Anglo-Saxon, hvilc ; in the Mseso-Gothic 
 hweleiks, from hwas, or hwe, "whom," and leiks, "like." In the 
 Alamannic it is huuielich ; in the Danish huilk ; in the Dutch welke ; 
 in the German welche. The word whilk, .anciently written quhilk, was 
 common in Scotland to a late period, and perhaps still exists in some 
 remote parts of the country. It is .uniformly used in the " Disputation " 
 of Nicol Burne, A. D. 1581 : as, " I micht produce monie siclyk places, 
 quhilk I never hard zit cited be zou ;" that is, "I might produce many 
 such places (of Scripture), which I never heard yet cited by you." 
 
 iv. Agreeing with these is the old English thilke, still retained in the 
 Wiltshire dialect, and pronounced thik, for " that." Thus Spenser, in 
 his " May," says : — . 
 
 Our blonket liveries been all too sad, 
 For thilke same season, when all is yclad 
 In pleasance. 
 
 Chaucer, in his translation of Boethius, says, " Certes yet liveth 
 in good point thilk precious honour of mankind." 
 
CHAP. XIII.] OF ADVERBS. 237 
 
 And in the poem on Christ's Descent into Hell are these lines : — 
 
 The smale fendes that bueth nout stronge 
 He shulen among men yonge 
 Thilke that nulleth ageyne hem stonde 
 Ichulle he habben hem in honde. 
 
 That is, " the small fiends that are not strong shall go among mankind, 
 and those persons who will not stand against them, I am willing they 
 should have in hand." 
 
 Thus have I traced a substantive (signifying tody) through its 
 transitions, first into an adjective proper (like), thence as part of the 
 compound adjectives proper and pronominal (lovelike and solike), and, 
 lastly, into the termination Qy), which is still used both in adjectives 
 and adverbs, though with idiomatic differences in respect to particular 
 words, some being only considered as belonging to the one class, and 
 some to the other. Goodly, for instance, though not much used in the 
 present day, and rather as an adverb than an adjective, is employed by 
 Shakspeare in the latter character, through all its degrees of com- 
 parison : — 
 
 i. In Hamlet: — 
 
 I saw him once, he was a goodly king. 
 
 ii. In Ms Well that Ends Well:— 
 
 If he were honester he were much goodlier. 
 
 iii. In King Henry VIII. : — 
 
 She is the goodliest woman that ever lay by man. 
 So the word kindly is commonly considered to be an adverb, but Burns 
 uses it as an adjective in Poor Maine's Elegy : — 
 
 Thro' a' the toun she trotted by him ; 
 A lang half-mile she cou'd descry him ; 
 Wi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him, 
 She ran wi' speed. 
 
 On the other hand, the word lonely is treated in the English dialect as 
 an adjective ; but Bums, in the same poem, employs it adverbially : — 
 
 Our bardie, lanely, keeps the spence 
 Sin' Mailie's dead. 
 
 Godly, lovely, portly, and some other such words, are for the most 
 part employed in modern times, as adjectives ; but it is observable that 
 godly has obtained by custom a different meaning from the identical 
 adjective godlike. We have, too, some of these words in one form of 
 composition, and not in its correspondent compound. Thus we say 
 ungainly for awkward ; though the word gainly, formerly in use, has 
 become obsolete. Dr. Henry More, a very learned writer of the 
 seventeenth century, says, " She laid her child as gainly as she could, 
 in some fresh leaves and grass." (Conj. Cabal.) 
 
 387. Of the words formerly in common use as adjectives, but now Very, 
 employed almost exclusively as adverbs, the word very is an obvious 
 instance. Very is correctly stated by Mr. Tooke to be the Latin 
 
23S OF ADVERBS. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 adjective verus, and Italian vero, " true," changed, in old French and 
 old English, into veray, which, in modern French, is vrai. The 
 adjectival use of this word still remains in the Nicene Creed as rendered 
 in the Liturgy of the Church of England, " very God of very God." 
 Chaucer uses it as an adjective both in the positive and comparative 
 degree. In his translation of Boethius, On the Consolation of Philo- 
 sophy (b. iv.), " It is clere and open that thilke sentence of Plato is 
 very and sothe." And again (b. hi.), " which that is a more verie 
 thinge." In these instances it retains the signification of mere truth ; 
 but in a secondary sense it expresses eminence in degree, and is even in 
 this respect employed as an adjective positively, comparatively and 
 superlatively. 
 
 My faithfulness shalt thou establish in the very heavens. Psalm lxsxix. 2. 
 
 • Was not my love 
 
 The verier wag o' the two ? Shakspeare. 
 
 Were he the veriest antick in the world. Ibid. 
 
 The secondary sense alone of the adjective survives in the modern 
 use of the adverb ; nor is it surprising, that an adjective primarily 
 signifying " true," should, in a secondary sense, form an adverb 
 expressing eminence of degree, as applied to all other qualities ; for a 
 thing that is very good or bad, i. e., good or bad in an eminent degree, 
 may be said, kot k'&xw'-, to be truly good or bad. The Italians 
 express the same modification of qualities by molto, " much," the 
 French by fort, " strong," the Latins by multum, " much," and valde, 
 from validus, " strong :" and our ancestors by a variety of attributives, 
 as swythe, sothfast, right, full, strong, well, &c. From the old adjective 
 veray we have also our inflected adverb verily, and the obsolete verra- 
 ment (the modern French vraiment), as in the above-quoted romance of 
 Kyng Alisaunder : — ■ 
 
 By the steorres and by the firmament 
 He him taughte verrament. 
 And again : — 
 
 Ther ros soche cry verrement, 
 No scholde mon yhere the thonder dent. 
 Participles. 388. It is not only the adjective proper which serves to modify- 
 other adjectives, or verbs. The participle performs the same office, 
 and in the same manner ; and this (in English) either by a participle 
 of present or of past time. Of the former class we have " scalding 
 hot," " staring mad," " roaring drunk," and, in Shakspeare, more 
 elegantly, " loving jealous." 
 
 Warm cataplasms may discuss, but scalding hot may confirm the 
 tumour. Arbuthnot.. 
 
 In came Squire South, stark, staring mad. Ibid. 
 
 ' I would have thee gone, 
 
 And yet no further than a wanton's bird, 
 
 Who lets it hop a little from her hand, 
 
 Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves, 
 
 And with a silk thread pulls it back again, 
 
 So loving jealous of his liberty. Shakspeare. 
 
CHAP. XIII.} OF ADVERBS. 239 
 
 Of the past participles some are used without, but more with the 
 prefix a, answering to the Anglo-Saxon and German ge. Bums thus 
 employs brent, from the the Scotch bren to burn : — 
 Nae cotillons brent-new frae France. 
 
 Milton has adrift from drive ; Ben Jonson, agone (now written ago) 
 from go ; Chaucer, of ret, either from the- verb freight, or, more pro- 
 bably, from the verb fret : — 
 
 Then shall this Mount 
 
 Of Paradise, hy might of waves, be mov'd, 
 With all his verdure spoil'd, and trees, adrift 
 Down the great river. Milton. 
 
 Is he such a princely one 
 
 As you speak him long agone ? B. Jonson. 
 
 For round environ her crounet 
 
 Was fulle of rich stonys afret. Chaucer. 
 
 In all these and the like cases, however, the notion of time which 
 specifically characterises the participle does not attach to the same 
 word when it becomes an adverb ; because it either modifies a verb, 
 and then the time is expressed by the verb itself; or else it modifies 
 an adjective, and then no expression of time is necessary. 
 
 389. The pronouns adjective supply, either with or without some Pronouns 
 slight change of form, many adverbs of frequent use ; especially those sSve, &c 
 pronouns which I have called demonstratives, partitives, distributives, 
 general and numeral, subjunctives, and interrogatives ; but as the words 
 constituting these several classes are in all languages among the 
 simplest and most ancient that exist, we must not be surprised to find 
 some difficulty in tracing the pronominal adverbs to their proper 
 origin. In this respect, very great praise is due to several recen: 
 German philologists, particularly to Professors Bopp, Pott, and 
 Jacob Grimm ; who have thrown important light on a part of the 
 science of language previously quite dark, and still involved in con- 
 siderable obscurity. I shall consider together the classes just specified, 
 reserving only the numerals for a separate notice. With this excep- 
 tion, the words in question furnish, in most languages, a number of 
 adverbs connected together by various relations, and for the most part 
 of an elliptical construction. The words here and there, hence and 
 thence, hie and illic, hinc and Mine, for instance, are manifestly in their 
 origin demonstrative pronouns, equivalent to the words this and that ; 
 but, by use, they have come to signify " at this place," " at that place ;" 
 " from this place," " from that place ;" the substantive " place " being 
 clearly understood by the mind. Neither can it be doubted that the 
 Latin adverbs quum and quo are the subjunctive pronoun qui, with the 
 terminations of the accusative and ablative case ; which word qui is 
 probably the same in origin with the Gothic hwo, the Saxon hwa, the 
 Scottish quha, and the English who. 
 
 It happens, that the English language is not perfectly systematic in 
 
240 OF ADVERBS. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 regard to the pronouns which it has adopted for adverbial purposes; 
 and the same may be said of most other languages. We have the 
 simple adverbs just mentioned, which form three distinct classes, with 
 reference to place, distinguishing the place where we are, from another 
 definite place, and supplying an interrogative for the place which we 
 know not, which interrogative is also a subjunctive. 
 
 The first of these is here, the second there, and the third where. It 
 happens too, with regard to place, that each of these three forms has 
 three varieties to express " at a place," " from a place," and " to a 
 place ;" and all these are variously compounded with several other 
 words or particles, fore, ever, soever, &c. Some of the verbs which 
 form adverbs of place, also become adverbs of time, manner, cause, &c. ; 
 but these latter ideas have a few adverbs which are peculiar to them- 
 selves, agreeing nevertheless, in principle and derivation, with the 
 adverbs of place. Hence may be formed the following table of the 
 simple adverbs of this kind : — 
 
 {here . . . there . . . where? 
 hence . . thence . . whence? 
 hither . . thither . . whither? 
 
 Time then . . . when? 
 
 Manner thus . . . how? 
 
 Cause why? 
 
 The three classes into which I have distributed these adverbs, have 
 not always been thus accurately distinguished. In our old language, we 
 shall find the prepositive forms here and there often interchanged with 
 the subjunctive or interrogative form where ; yet it is clearly evident 
 that these distinctions must have always existed in point of significa- 
 tion, however inaccurately or imperfectly expressed. 
 Here. 390. The word here is not only used in its simple form, but in a 
 
 variety of compounds, as, hereafter, hereabout, hereat, hereby, herein, 
 hereinto, hereof, hereon, hereupon, hereto, hereunto, heretofore, herewith, 
 heirfoir, heirintill, &c. In the simple form it is principally confined to 
 the signification of " this place;" whereas, in the compounds, it 
 generally signifies " this time," " this thing," " this event," or the like. 
 The cognate word hier, in German, does not follow exactly the same 
 variations of meaning. Both in its simple and compound forms it 
 principally refers to place, as hieran, hieraus, hierdurch, hierein, hierin- 
 nen, hierober, hierunter, &c. ; and so, heran, herebey, herein, &c ; though 
 some compounds are more general in their application, as, hierum, 
 hiervon, hierzu. In both languages, however, it is manifest that the 
 word here, hier, or her, intrinsically signifies no more than the word 
 this; and that the other significations, such as " place," " time," 
 " event," " reason," or the like, are supplied by the mind, according to 
 the context. It can hardly be doubted but that the elements of the 
 word here are to be discovered in he and er, which occur in many of 
 the Northern languages, as signifying this person or these persons, this 
 thing or these things ; so that the radical conception is what we express 
 
 
CHAP. Xni.] OF ADVERBS. 241 
 
 by the word this. The element he occurs, in Anglo-Saxon and old 
 English, in the words signifying he, she, they, and their respective 
 cases. The Anglo-Saxon pronoun personal is he, heo, hi, he, she, they ; 
 and the very word here occurs for the genitive plural, as heom does for 
 them. The same or similar words are frequent in old English writers. 
 In the Vision of Piers Plouhman — 
 
 Hermets on a heape with hoked staues 
 Wenten to Walsingham, and her wenches after. 
 ****** 
 
 Cokes and lier knaues cryden, hote pyes, hote : 
 
 that is, " their wenches," and " their knaves," or " boys." 
 
 In Chaucer's Parson's Tale, " Certes this vertue makith folk under- 
 take hard and greuous things by her own will ;" that is, " their own." 
 In an ancient ballad, probably of the thirteenth century, beginning 
 " In May, hit muryeth," (Harl. MSS. 2253. fol. 71)— 
 
 Ynot non so freoh flour 
 
 Ase ledies that beth biyht in hour, 
 
 With loue who mihte hem bynde : 
 
 That is, "I know no flower so fresh as ladies who are bright in bowers, 
 to those who may bind them with love." In a dialogue between a 
 body and a spirit, of the same date (ibid. fol. 57), " he wolleth " occurs 
 for " they will." This word was sometimes written heo, as, in a 
 satirical poem against the ecclesiastical lawyers, (ibid. fol. 71) — 
 
 Heo shulen in helle on an hok 
 Honge there fore. 
 
 And sometimes hi, as in another manuscript in the Harleian collection 
 (No. 2277, fol. 195)— 
 
 Tho hi dude here pelrynage in holie stedes faste, 
 
 So that among the Sarazyns ynome hi were atte laste : 
 
 that is " they did their pilgrimage, so that they were taken at last." 
 
 In the Lai le frain, which is a translation from the Norman-French 
 of the celebrated poetess Marie, we have he and hye for " she ;" and 
 him for " her :" — 
 
 The maiden abode no lengore, 
 Bot yede hir to the chirche dore ; 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Lord, he seyd, Jesu Crist, &e. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Hye loked vp, and by hir seighe 
 
 An asche, by hir, fair and heighe. 
 
 ***** 
 
 A litel maiden childe ich founde, 
 In the holwe assche therout, 
 And a pel him about. 
 
 The other element, er, is found in the modem German er, he, and 
 
 in the Icelandic er, am, is, and who ; as in the Edda of Snorro, " Feyma 
 
 heiter su kona er of ram er svo sem ungar meyar eru. n " Feyma is 
 
 called the woman who modest is, as the young maidens are." In the 
 
 2. R 
 
242 OF ADVERBS. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 Frankish and Alamannic, the demonstrative and relative pronouns of 
 the third person are er, her, and ir. Thus, in the Frankish of Otfrid 
 the Monk, " Er gibot then uuinton," " He commanded the winds ;" in 
 that of Tatian, " Er quam in sin eigan," "He came to his own." In 
 the Alamannic of Isidore, " Dhaz ir Jhesus uuardh chinennt" " That 
 he Jesus was named." These two elements, then, viz., he and er, are 
 identical in signification; and are only redoubled for the sake of 
 emphasis, which is a habit common to barbarous nations, and to the 
 illiterate in all countries. Hence it is, that the French have their ce-ci 
 and ce-la, and even ce-lui-ci and ce-lui-la ; and that our own rustics 
 commonly say this here, that there, thick there, &c. From this source 
 undoubtedly come the Gothic, Anglo-Saxon, Danish, and Icelandic her, 
 the Frankish and Alamannic hier, Mar, hiera, the modem German and 
 Dutch hier, and the English here, all used to signify, " at this place," 
 although the simple and radical meaning of them all is simply " this J 3 
 The various explanations which are given of the adverb here by 
 Dr. Johnson only serve to show that the conception of a distinct and 
 particular place is no necessary constituent in the meaning of the word. 
 Thus here is opposed to a future time, as well as to a different place, 
 by Bacon, in his advice to Villiers: " You shall be happy here and 
 more happy hereafter ;" which might be paraphrased " in this life and 
 in a life after this " — " in this world, and in a world after this " — " in 
 this state of existence, and in a state of existence after this," always 
 retaining, however, the conception expressed by the word this. So 
 when the words here and there are explained by Johnson " dispersedly ; 
 in one place and another ;" as in another extract from Bacon : " I 
 would have in the heath some thickets made only of sweet-briar, and 
 honeysuckle, and some wild vine amongst ; and the ground set with 
 violets ; for these are sweet, and prosper in the shade ; and these to 
 be in the heath here and there, not in order." The words here and 
 there are still to be explained this and that ; for the imagination forms 
 conceptions of places separate from each other, although quite indeter- 
 minately as to any specific external situation, and even as to number, 
 except that the place signified by the word here is in imagination 
 separate from that expressed by the word there. The indistinct process 
 of the imagination, therefore, in the passage above cited, may be 
 explained by supposing an individual carelessly wandering over the 
 ground which is to be ornamented, and occasionally stopping to say, I 
 will have a thicket planted in this place and another in that place. The 
 same expression occurs in a beautiful sonnet of Shakspeare — 
 Alas ! 'tis true, I have gone here and there ; 
 
 which corresponds with the expression a ranged," in the preceding 
 verses — 
 
 As easie might I from my selfe depart, 
 
 As from my soule, which in thy brest doth lye : 
 
 That is my home of loue. If I haue rang'd, 
 
 Like him that tranels, I returne againe. 
 
CHAP. XIII.] OF ADVERBS. 243 
 
 Here and there are doubtless used indefinitely in such phrases ; but not 
 more indefinitely than the pronouns this and that might themselves be 
 used, as in the song — 
 
 This way, or that way, or which way you will ; 
 
 and in Drayton's pleasing description of a winter evening's chat with 
 
 his friend — 
 
 JSTow talk'd of this, and then discours'd of thai, 
 Spoke our own verses, 'twixt ourselves, &c. 
 
 Nay, even the pronoun personal is sometimes used with the same 
 uncertainty of application ; as in Chaucer's spirited description of a 
 tournament, in the Knyghfs Tale — 
 
 He rolleth under foote, as dothe a hall, 
 Te foyneth on his feet with a tronchoun, 
 nd he hurleth with his horse adoun, 
 He through the hody is hvrt and sith ytake. 
 
 In none of which instances is there any certain antecedent to the word 
 he ; and yet it stands first for one man, then for another, then for a 
 third, and lastly for a fourth. 
 
 Hence and hither maj be considered as cases of the word here ; but 
 perhaps it would be more accurate to treat these three w r ords as 
 different compounds of the element he, with er, an, and der. Hence 
 is the Anglo-Saxon heonan, and the Frankish hina. It seems to be 
 connected with the Icelandic han, he, and hin, it ; and with the syllable 
 hin, which, in various German compounds, signifies " from this place," 
 " " from this time," " at this time," " to that place," &c. ; and which is 
 used alone to signify anything that is " gone hence ;" " lost," or " anni- 
 hilated ;" as in the Leonore of Burger — 
 
 mutter, mutter, hin ist hin! ... \ 
 
 ■ Verlohren ist verlohren I 
 
 So they say er ist hin for "he is dead :" hinrichten is to execute justice 
 on any one, to put him to death ; hindag is " this day ;" hinfort, 
 " henceforth," " from this time forth ;" which is also expressed 
 forthin. Immerhin is an exclamation answering to our " let it go," 
 and meaning "be it ever thus, I care not;" as, er mag immerhin 
 schreyen, " he may bawl as long as he likes." So hinauf and hinab, 
 " above and below ;" hinein and hinaus, " within and without," mean 
 respectively above this place, below this place, within this place, out of 
 this place. Hinfahren is to go away, to go from this place ; and, in 
 the Frankish, hinafahrt is " death." Our English word hence, in old 
 writings, is hen, han, hin, hennes. In the romance of The Seuyn Sages, 
 we find — 
 
 A fend he is, in kinde of man ; 
 
 Binde him, sire, and lede han. 
 
 Chaucer, in the Knyghfs Tale, says — ■ 
 
 The fires whiche on min auter hrenne 
 Shal declaren er that thou go henne 
 This auenture of loue. 
 
 r2 
 

 244 OF ADVERBS. [CHAP., XIII.' 
 
 So in Christ's Descent into Hell — 
 
 Bring vs of this lothe lond 
 Louerd hcnne into thyn hond. 
 
 In the Scottish Act of Parliament, A. D. 1438, " that all the kinge's 
 hegis be vnharmyt & vnscaithit of the said house & of thaim that 
 inhabits theirin fra hyn furth." 
 
 Hither is the Anglo-Saxon and Gothic hidre. In the old English 
 too it was often written with ad; as in Chaucer's Monk's Tale — 
 
 And if you list to herken hiderward. 
 So in two manuscript poems in the British Museum (Harl. MSS. 
 2253, fol. 64 and fol. 124)— 
 
 Herketh hideward, and booth stille. 
 * * * * 
 
 Herkneth hideward horsmen 
 A tidyng ichou telle. 
 
 And, in the poem on Christ's, Descent into Hell, Satan says — 
 
 Ne may non me worse do, 
 Then ich haue had hiderto. 
 
 There. 391. There, thence, thither, are manifestly constructed on the same 
 
 principles, and applied in the same manner as here, hence, and 
 hither ; and as we suppose the first element of here to be he, so we 
 suppose the first element of there to be the, which, in the Anglo-Saxon, 
 was prefixed as an article to substantives in all cases, and in both 
 numbers ; and which appears in various dialects under the forms of 
 thei, thy, tho, tha, all relating to the pronoun that. Thei is the Gothic 
 conjunction " that." Thy, in the old English compound forthy, signifies 
 " for that," viz. cause. Tho is explained by Junius, qui, illi, and tunc, 
 viz. "that person," in the plural; and " that place" used adverbially; 
 and he adds, that the Anglo-Saxon tha admits all these signifi- 
 cations. 
 
 Tho for " then" (see Warton, vol. i. p. 161) — 
 The messengers tho home went. 
 
 Tho for " when" (Harl. MSS. 2253, fol. 37)— 
 Tho Jhesu was to hell ygan. 
 
 Tha for " those" (The Seuyn Sages, v. 3901)— 
 
 Al tha wordes ful well he knew, 
 He was so ferd him changed hew. 
 
 Thae for " those." See the second volume of The Antiquary, (one 
 of the novels which so accurately delineate the manners and language 
 of Scotland,) p. 297— 
 
 Time's your landward and burrowstown notions. 
 
 Tho for « those" (Harl. MSS. 2253, fol. 55, 56)— 
 
 Parmafey ich hold myne 
 All tho that bueth her ynne. 
 
.CHAP. XIII.] OF ADVERBS. 245 
 
 There seems to be compounded of the and er ; as here of he and er ; 
 but however this may be, there manifestly agrees with the German der, 
 which is a demonstrative and relative pronoun, as well as an article, 
 and consequently answers to our the, this, and who. In like manner, 
 the Anglo-Saxon thaere or thcer formed the genitive of the article, and 
 also the demonstrative and relative adverb ; as in the 4th chapter of 
 Joshua, " Nyman twelf stanas on middan thcere ea, thcer tha sacerdas 
 stodon, & habban forth mid eow, to eowre wicstowe, & wurpan hig 
 thcer." " Take twelve stones from [the] midst [of] the water, where 
 the priests stood ; and have [them] forth with you, to your abiding- 
 place, and cast them [down] there ;" in which passage we see thcere 
 and thcer, answering to the, ichere, and tJiere, successively. So in the 
 old English, there is often used in two connected sentences, for there 
 and where ; as in Chaucer's Wife of BatKs Tale — 
 
 There as "vront to walken was an elfe, 
 There walketh now the limitour himself. 
 
 It might not unreasonably be surmised, that where the operations 
 of the mind are so distinct, as those indicated by a demonstrative and 
 a subjunctive pronoun or adverb are, they would necessarily require 
 expressions equally different ; but a careful attention to the history of 
 language will show us that it differs very widely in this respect from 
 its philosophy. It is for want of having sufficiently considered this 
 circumstance that we find grammarians so often at a loss to account 
 for different idioms, and giving reasons for them which are purely 
 imaginary, not to say absurd. It is, no doubt, a great excellence in a 
 language to mark, by distinct expressions, the distinct operations of 
 the mind, and the more nicely this is done, the more accurate and ex- 
 pressive does a language become ; but this is generally the result of 
 time and of an undefinable sense of inconvenience, which induces men 
 to inflect and vary words, as it were, insensibly, and to assign to the 
 various inflections, though of similar origin, different effects. In no 
 language, however, has this principle been carried into full operation ; 
 and hence we see the different meanings of a word, and the different 
 parts of speech which it constitutes, passing into each other by grada- 
 tions, which, at first sight, it is not always easy to explain. Thus, in 
 Greek, the subjunctive pronoun, or, as some call it, the subjunctive 
 article, og, is sometimes said to be used for the prepositive 6 ; some- 
 times for rig interrogatively ; and sometimes for avrog. Again, "Oang 
 sometimes answers to the Latin relative quis, and sometimes to quis- 
 quis. The adverb "Ottov, besides the common signification " where," 
 answers to " whither ;" and, in argument, to " since ;" and in descrip- 
 tion, to " in this place," or " in that place." So, ore, " when," sig- 
 nifies also " since," like the. Latin cum : and the examples of this kind 
 are infinite. We shall not, therefore, be surprised to find considerable 
 diversity from the modem idiom in the following, and many similar 
 instances : — 
 
246 OF ADVERBS. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 Ther is used for the, that, or them ; as, in The Seuyn Sages, therwhile 
 for the while : — 
 
 Therwhile, sire, that I tolde this tale, 
 Thi sone rnighte tholie dethes bale. 
 
 Gawin Douglas has " thare aboue" for " above that;" and " tharon" 
 for " on them." 
 
 In the old Scottish dialect thir was used for these or them ; as in the 
 act of 1424, " thir ar taxis ordaynt throu the counsaile of Parliament." 
 So in Dunbar's Goldin Terge, written about a century afterward — 
 
 Full lustiely thir ladyis all in feir 
 Enterit into this park of maist pleseir. ' 
 * * * * . * 
 
 And every ane of thir in grene arrayt 
 
 And harp and lute full mirreyly they playt. 
 
 In the same dialect" we find thairto and thai? fra, thairfoir and 
 thairefter, tharapone, thairuntill, &c. 
 
 Chaucer uses therto in the sense of " moreover," or *' in addition to 
 that" as in the Rime of Sir Thopas — 
 
 He couthe hunt at the wilde' dere 
 And ride an hauking forby the riuere 
 
 With grey goshauke on honde : 
 Therto he was a good archere. 
 
 Therefore, which, in modern times, is commonly used conjunctively, 
 occurs in a rude old English poem before quoted (Harl. MSS. 2253, 
 fol. 71), as signifying for that — 
 
 Heo shulen in helle on an hok 
 Honge there fore. 
 
 In short, comparing the different authorities, ancient and modem, 
 we find that the word there, however variously spelt, did not originally 
 relate to place exclusively, but was equally applied to time, to persons, 
 and to events : and the same may be said of thence and thither. 
 Thenceforth, which we use with reference to time, agrees with the old 
 Scottish phrase fra thin furth, as in the following passage in the Act 
 of 1503, which is, on many accounts, worthy of notice: — 
 
 It is statute and ordanit that fra thin furth na baroun, frehaldar, nor vassal, 
 quhilkis ar within ane hundreth merks of this extent that now is, be compellit to 
 cum personaly to the parliament, bot gif it be that our souerane Lord write speciale 
 for thame. And sa (sal) not be unlawit for thair persons, and thai send thair 
 procuratours to answer for thame, with the baronis of the schire, or the maist 
 famous personis. And all that ar aboue the extent of ane hundreth merks to cum 
 to the parliament, vnder the pane of the auld vnlaw. 
 
 Thither was, in the Anglo-Saxon and old English, thider, as in the 
 poem often quoted (Harl MSS. 2253, fol. 55)— 
 
 God for is moder loue, 
 Let us neuer thider come. 
 
 And as they had hide ward for " hitherward," or " toward this place," 
 
CHAP. Xffl.] OF ADVERBS. 247 
 
 so they had thederwart for " thitherward," or " toward that place :" as 
 in the ludicrous poem called " The Huntyng of the Hare :" — 
 
 Thei toke no hede thederwart, 
 But euery dogge on oder start. 
 
 392. Where, whence, and whither. These words have also a similar Where, 
 malogy, together with this further peculiarity, that they serve in- 
 differently for interrogatives and subjunctives. Thus in the interro- 
 gative : — 
 
 They continually say unto rne, where is thy God ? Psa. xlii. 3. 
 
 And he said, Hagar, Sarai's maid, whence earnest thou ; and whither 
 wilt thou go ? Gen. xvi. 8. 
 
 And again in the subjunctive — 
 
 Let no man know where ye be. Jer. xxxvi. 19. 
 
 I wist not whence they were. Josh. ii. 4. 
 
 He went out, not knowing whither he went. Heb. xi. 8. 
 
 We have already seen that the subjunctive force of the word where 
 was not peculiar to it, but was sometimes expressed by the word 
 there. We do not find this to be the case in English with the inter- 
 rogative force of the same word ; but in Greek the relative pronoun rig 
 is also an interrogative ; as in St. Mark's gospel, c. ii. v. 6, 7 : T Hffa*> 
 2)£ TINES tu)v ypanfiaTEuiv ktcet tcad^/JLevoi kcli cWAoyi^ojuevcu kv rate; 
 Kapdiaig clvtojv' TI' ovtoq ovtoj XaXei /3\a(T(pr]ixiag ; TIS hvvarai 
 cupiivai a/j,apriag, el /nrj lig 6 Qeog ; — " But there were certain of the 
 scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts, why doth this man 
 thus speak blasphemies ? Who can forgive sins, but God only ?" — 
 Hence it is clear, that the interrogative effect of a word does not 
 require a peculiar form, any more than the subjunctive. So the Latin 
 quidam, which means " a certain person," and " aliquis," which means 
 " some one," are reciprocally connected with the interrogative quis, and 
 the subjunctive qui. Scaliger was of opinion that the Latin quis and 
 qui were the Greek kcli oq and /ecu o ; and Tooke, probably thinking 
 to improve on this etymology, has only gone further in error. He 
 says, "As ut (originally written uti) is nothing but on ; so is quod 
 (anciently written quodde) merely ical brl : — 
 
 Quodde, tuas laudes cidpas nil proficis hilum. Lucilius. 
 
 " Qu in Latin being sounded not as the English, but as the French 
 pronounce qu, that is, as the Greek K ; kcli, by a change of the cha- 
 racter, not of the sound, became the Latin que, used only enclitically 
 indeed in modern Latin. Hence kcil 6tI became in Latin qu'otti, 
 quoddi, quoddz, quod." — The only foundation for all these conjectures 
 seems to be, that in the very nature of a subjunctive pronoun some- 
 thing equivalent to a conjunction is implied ; and as to the assertions 
 respecting the Roman pronunciation they are perfectly gratuitous. It 
 is not very probable that the ancient pronunciation of qu was the 
 same as of K ; on the contrary, it more probably resembled that of 
 
248 OF ADVERBS. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 X, or rather of the Gothic O, which our Anglo-Saxon ancestors 
 expressed by hw, the old Scottish writers by quh, and we by wh, 
 Scaliger and Tooke forgot, that if their explanation might be thought 
 to account for the subjunctive pronoun, or conjunction, it left the inter- 
 rogative pronouns and adverbs quite unexplained ; and the fact seems 
 to be, that the Latin language originally agreed with the Gothic and 
 other northern languages in employing the articulation markedly the 
 iEolic digamma, where the softer Greek dialects omitted that articu- 
 lation ; thus the Greek oivoq was the Latin vinum and Gothic weinj 
 the Greek Si was the Latin vce and Gothic wai; and lastly, the 
 Greek aspirated pronouns fj, 6, were the Latin quce, quo, and the 
 Gothic hwa, hwo. 
 
 It is manifest that where did not originally refer to place alone, any> 
 more than here or there did ; but, like those words, was originally a 
 pronoun signifying this or that ; for in its composite forms it often sig- 
 nifies no more than those pronouns, the substantive to which it refers 
 being usually expressed, but sometimes understood. Thus we have 
 whereabout, for "about which business" — 
 
 Let no man know any thing of the business whereabout I send 
 thee. 1 Sam. xxi. 2. 
 
 Whereto, for " to which thing " — - 
 
 It shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it, Isaiah Iv. 11. 
 Whereby, for "by which name" — 
 ; There is none other name under heaven given among men whereby 
 
 we must be saved. Acts iv. 12. 
 
 Wherefore, for " for which cause " — 
 
 What is the cause wherefore ye are come ? Acts x. 21. 
 
 All these compounds may be employed interrogatively, (and indeed 
 the subjunctive use of some of them has at present become rather ob- 
 solete,) but in this form also they are not necessarily significant of 
 *' place." — Thus whereby is used for " by what means ? " — 
 
 Zacharias said unto the angel, whereby shall I know this ? Luke i. 18. 
 Wherefore, for " for what reason? " — 
 
 Now he is dead wherefore should I fast ? 2 Sam. xii. 23. 
 
 It is to be observed, however, that there are certain adverbs com- 
 pounded with where, which cannot be used interrogatively, such as 
 whereas, wherever, wheresoever ; but the reason is, that in these, as well 
 as in whensoever, whithersoever, &c, the pronoun as and so, and the 
 word ever, necessarily give them a relative force and effect : — 
 
 Have ye not spoken a lying divination, whereas ye say, The Lord 
 saith it ? Ezeli. xiii. 7. 
 
 Ye have the poor with you always : and whensoever ye will ye 
 may do them good. Mark xiv. 7. 
 
 The Lord preserved David whithersoever he went. 2 Sam. viii. 6. 
 It would be impossible to express these passages interrogatively, 
 
.CHAP.. XIII.] OF ADVERBS. 249 
 
 " whereas say ye ? " " whensoever will ye ? " " whithersoever did he 
 go?" not on account of the meaning of the words "where," "when," 
 or " whither," but of the others with which they are compounded. 
 
 From what has been said, it is abundantly clear that the adverbs 
 here, there, where, hence, thence, whence, hither, thither, and whither, 
 although in their modern and uncompounded use they principally 
 express a conception of "place," yet did not really include the name 
 of any such conception in their original signification, but were the 
 mere pronouns he, this, and what, diversely compounded, and assigned 
 by use to separate and distinct significations. 
 
 393. The very same is to be observed of the adverbs Then and TW 
 When, which have been above noted, as principally signifying time. 
 We have not, indeed, the word Hen for "at this time," though it 
 occurs in old English for hence, i. e., from this place. Thus, in the 
 scoffing ballad made on the defeat of Henry III. at Lewes, in 1264, 
 and which, from its tenor, must have been composed very soon after 
 the event, we find the following lines — 
 
 He hath robbed Engelond the mores ant the ferine 
 The gold ant the selver ant yboren henne. 
 
 Hann, in the Icelandic, is " he," and hun is " she ;" and Stiern- 
 helm (Gloss. Ulph. Goth., p. 85), speaking of the Gothic word hana, 
 as in hana hrukida, " the cock crew," (Matth. xxvi. 74,) says, Omnis 
 avis mascula dicitur hana, ab han, Me, et fcemina hona, ab HON, ilia; 
 " every male bird is called hana, from han, he ; and every female 
 bird hona, from hon, she." Hence we may infer, that the element en 
 was compounded in some of the northern dialects, as we have already 
 seen that er was, viz., with he, the, and who, producing hen, then, and 
 when, as well as here, there, and where, all of them originally pro- 
 nouns, and all used in a restricted sense by an ellipsis of the words 
 time, place, &c, as adverbs. 
 
 In the Gothic, Than is both "then" and "when," and yuthan is 
 used for "now." Than is also used for autem, Si, " but;" and it is 
 manifestly nothing more than the article or pronoun thana, or thanei, 
 answering to the Greek rov, or qv, as Seimon tkan A.haitanan Zeloten, 
 Si/nova TCTN KaXovfjLevov Zrj\(OTi]v, " Simqn, who (was) called 
 Zelotes," (Luke vi. 15); thanei wildedun, tv ON ij$e\ov, "whom they 
 would," (Matth. xxvii. 15). Thon, for "those," is still used in many 
 parts of Scotland ; thynfurth we have seen in the old dialect of that 
 country, for " thenceforth," which, in the parliamentary articles of 
 1461 above quoted, is written " thensforth :" and as henne was used, 
 in old English, for " hence," so thenne was used for thence, i. e., from 
 that place; as in Christ's Descent into Hell — 
 
 Xas non so holy prophete, 
 
 Seththe Adam & Eue the appel ete, 
 
 Ant he were at this worldes syne, 
 
 That he ne moste to helle pyne : 
 
 Ne shulde he neuer thenne come, 
 
 Nere Jesu Crist Godes sone. 
 

 
 250 OF ADVERBS. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 When is the Gothic hwan, which is used for the Latin quando, quo- 
 niam, quantum, quam, and is manifestly the same as hwana, quern, 
 "whom;" as hwana soktt, " whom seek ye ? " (John xviii. 4.) As 
 the Gothic than and hwan, and the old English there and where were 
 often used convertibly, so were then and when ; and in the Harleian 
 MSS. (No. 2253, fol. 55, b.) we find the for when- 
 ce he com there, tho seide he. 
 
 wl »y- 394. It will not be necessary to use much argument in proof of the 
 
 identity of origin between Why and the words before mentioned, 
 where, when, &c. ; it is manifestly only another form of the pronoun 
 who. In modern usage we do not oppose thy (in the sense of this 
 cause) to why ; but this mode of expression occurs in the old words 
 forthy and withthy. Forthy occurs in the Scottish Act of 1424, in 
 the two senses of "because" and "therefore." So in Barbour's 
 Bruce — 
 
 But God that most is of all might 
 
 Preserved thame in his forsight 
 
 To venge the harm and the contrair 
 
 That those fell folk and pantener 
 
 Did to simple folk and worthy, 
 
 That couth not help themselven ; forthy 
 
 They were like to the Maccabeis. 
 
 The same author seems to use nought for thy in the sense of 
 " nevertheless," as — 
 
 And nought for thy, thocht they be feil, 
 God may richt weil our werdes deil. 
 
 And not for thy thair faes then were 
 Ay twa for ane that they had there. 
 
 So he uses with thy for " provided," or "on this condition" — 
 
 And I sal be in your helping 
 With thy ye give me all the Ion; 1 
 That ye have nou into your hond. 
 
 In all which instances thy is simply this, viz., cause, reason, or con- 
 dition, those substantives being understood by the sort of ellipsis 
 already explained. 
 Ho *- 395. How is simply the pronoun who, or hwa, sometimes written in 
 
 old English ho ; as in the Harleian MS. 2277, fol. 1— 
 
 Seinte Marie day in Leynte, among 
 
 Alle other dayes gode 
 Is ryt forto holde heghe 
 . Ho so him vnderstode. 
 
 And as we have seen the pronoun that, and the adverb as, used con- 
 vertibly, so we find hou in the old Scottish dialect used where we 
 should employ so, or as ; e. g. housone, for " so soon as" — 
 
 That housone ony truble, questioun, or causis happynnis to be 
 movit — than incontinent it salbe lesum, &c. 
 
 Scottish Acts, a.d. 1554. 
 
 . 
 
CHAP. XIII. J OF ADVERBS. 251 
 
 396. I have thus traced, at some length, the English adverbs of General 
 place, time, &c, have shown them to be no other than the demonstra- 
 tive and subjunctive pronouns, appropriated by custom to certain dis- 
 tinct significations ; but though the particular applications are matter 
 
 of mere idiom, and vary, as has been seen, considerably in the same 
 country at different periods ; yet in most, if not all languages, the 
 same general principle is to be traced. In most, if not all, the words 
 which are employed as adverbs of time, place, manner, and cause, are 
 pronouns with little or no variation of form. 
 
 In Latin, from the pronouns is, ea, id, come the adverbs ibi, alibi, 
 ibidem, hide, provide, ita, itaque, ideo, iccirco, eo, adeo, eorsurn, uspiam, 
 nusquam, &c. From hie, hcec, hoc, come him, hue, adhuc, huccine, 
 horsum, hodie, antehac, posthac, hacpropter, &c. From ille, ilia, illud, 
 come illic, illico, illuc, illinc, olim, &c. From qui, quae, quod, come 
 quo, quoque, quam, quando, quia, quamvis, quare, quin, quidem, cum, 
 cur, and probably ubi, ubivis, alicubi, &c. 
 
 It is needless to trace the pronominal adverbs in Greek ; but it 
 may be somewhat curious to observe the same principle in the Persian 
 language, in which the pronouns are een, this ; aim, that ; ke, who ; 
 che, which. 
 
 From een, " this," are derived eenjd, " here, 7 ' eensu, " hither." 
 From aun, "that;" dnjd, "there;" dnsu, "thither;" angdh, 
 "then. 7 ' 
 
 From ke, "who;" cu or cujd, " where," " whither." 
 From che, "which;" chan, "how, or when?" chend, "how 
 many?" chera, "wherefore?" hemchun, "so as," &c. (See Sir 
 William Jones's Persian Grammar; and compare pages- 32 and 33, 
 with 93, 94, 95, and 96.) 
 
 397. The numeral pronouns supply a class of adverbs, which are Numerals. 
 not very numerous in any language. Verbs of action represent con- 
 ceptions which may be often repeated. If it be meant to limit the 
 action to a single instance, the conception of the number one must be 
 expressed, and so of any other number, and to this is added, either 
 expressly, or, at least, in the mind, the conception of time. Thus we 
 
 say "he marched six times through Spain;" he conquered more than 
 twenty times in pitched battles;" "he was twelve times crowned wuth 
 laurel." In most languages it is unnecessary to express the conception 
 of time in connection with the lower numbers, the numerals them- 
 selves supplying an inflection, by which that conception is perfectly 
 understood. Thus are produced our adverbs once, twice, thrice, which 
 are no other than the old genitives onis, twyis, threyis. The Latin 
 language is more felicitous in this respect ; it has decies, vicies, centies, 
 and millies, to express ten times, twenty times, a hundred times, and 
 a thousand times. 
 
 In a poem of the time of Henry VI., entitled, " How the wyse man 
 taght hys son" (Harl. MSS. 1596), is the line— 
 For and thy wyfe may onys aspye. 
 
252 OF ADVERBS. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 In Kyng Alisaunder — 
 
 Ta-yes is somer in that londe. • ' .' . 
 
 # * * 5!: 
 
 Ye haveth him twycs overcome. 
 
 With respect to the adverb once, however, it is to be noted, that as 
 one is not always opposed to two or three, or any specific number, but 
 sometimes merely to many ; so once does not always signify " at one 
 time," as opposed to two, three, or any other number of times, but 
 merely " at some time " different from the present. Thus, when the 
 poet Wordsworth says of Venice, 
 
 Once did she hold the gorgeous East in fee, 
 
 he means to contrast the greatness of a former time with the degrada- 
 tion of the present. As if he had said, although at this present time 
 she lies so low, there was one other period, at least, in her history, 
 which presented a far different picture. At that time she was rich 
 and great, famous and powerful — 
 
 > Now lies she there, 
 
 And none so poor to do her reverence. 
 
 Nor is this signification confined to the time past. Once equally 
 means some uncertain time as applied to the future. Thus, in the 
 Meny Wives of Windsor — 
 
 I pray thee, once to night, give my sweet Nan this ring. 
 
 Nearly the same effect is given in Latin to the adverb olim, which 
 means some one point of time, either past or future ; and seems to 
 have the same connection with the relative article, as our word once 
 has with the positive ; for olim appears to be derived from olle, which 
 the early Romans used for ille, and which, in the plural, was written 
 oloe, as in the Royal Law : Si parentis puer verberit, ast oloe ploras- 
 sint. The numerals here spoken of are those called cardinal ; but the 
 ordinals also supply a certain class of adverbs, as thirdly, fourthly, 
 ffthly, &c, which are formed from the adjectives third, fourth, fifth, 
 &c., by adding the termination ly, before explained. In the Latin 
 language, the correspondent words tertib, quarto, &c, are manifestly 
 the adjectives tertius, quartus, &c, with the termination of the abla- 
 tive case. In English, too, we use the adjective first, adverbially, 
 without any alteration. It has been observed above that the first 
 two of the ordinal numbers generally appear not to be taken from the 
 names of the cardinal numbers ; thus we do not say in English the 
 oneth, the twoeth, nor in Latin unitus, duitus, nor in Greek evorog, 
 civirog ; but in these languages respectively, first, second, primus, secun- 
 dum, ttowtoq, SsvTepoQ : and when we look to the etymology of these 
 words, we shall be inclined to suspect that they are in their origin 
 simpler, and therefore, perhaps, earlier than the adjectives taken from 
 the ordinal numbers. The word first is manifestly the superlative of 
 fore, the first, being, of course, the for-est, or that which is before all 
 
CHAP. XIII.] OF ADVERBS. 253 
 
 others. The Latin primus is in like manner the superlative of the old 
 word pri. Scaliger, speaking of the word primus, says, Superlativum 
 est ; nam pri vetus vox fuit, sicut NT : postea latiore vocali fusse sunt 
 ne, pile, wide Adverbium, pridem ; comparativum, prius ; superla- 
 tivum,, primum. So the Greek Trpwrog is the superlative of the prepo- 
 sition 7rpo, being formed thus, irporarog, irpoarog, and (the 6a shown 
 by the circumflex accent to be contracted into w) 7rpu>Tog. As to the 
 preposition irpo, it answers exactly to the Latin pro?, before, primarily 
 with regard to time or place, and secondarily to order, or what we 
 call preference. The word irpib, indeed, is used for the first dawn of 
 day ; but this appears to be merely a contraction from 7rpm, which, 
 however, is undoubtedly connected with irpo ; nor can there be much 
 doubt that the three radicals to which I have alluded, viz., pri, pro, 
 and for, have all one common origin. 
 
 398. If there be a doubt whether any one particular class of words Verbs. 
 can be used adverbially,, that doubt must apply to the Verbs. In 
 English, the words to which this doubt applies are either of uncertain 
 etymology ; or else their use is rather conjunctional or interjectional 
 than adverbial. The adverb Yet has been considered to be the imperative 
 mood of the Anglo-Saxon verb gytan, or getan, to get ; but it is not 
 very evident how this imperative can be applied to the different senses 
 
 in which the word yet is used. The adverbs ado and together have an 
 obvious affinity with the verbs do and gather ; but it is not easy to 
 trace them directly to any particular part of those verbs. Ado is well 
 known in English from the name of the popular drama, Much Ado 
 about Nothing. In the Scottish dialect too it is very ancient. In the 
 preface to Gawin Douglas's translation of the iEneid we find the ex- 
 pression " it has nathing ado therewith." The adverb Together has a 
 manifest relation to the verb gather, which, however, we now use with 
 some diversity of meaning. The adverb and the verb rather, seem to 
 refer to some common origin, which does not exist in English, but ap- 
 pears in a more simple form in Dutch, in which gade is a consort, as 
 een duyf en haare gade, " a dove and her mate ;" gadeloos, matchless ; 
 gadelyk, sortable, &c. 
 
 399. Yes and No may be referred to the class of verbal adverbs, if Affirmative 
 they properly belong to this part of speech, which I am inclined to Negative, 
 think they do ; though a very able philologist considers them as 
 "referable to none of the current parts of speech," but requiring 
 
 by accurate grammar to be placed "in a class by themselves." * 
 Doubtless they stand alone in construction, and are equivalent, each of 
 them, to a whole sentence ; but that sentence is elliptical, and, I appre* 
 hend, that the verb understood in it is modified by the adverb expressed. 
 In the language of gesture nothing can be more simple, more universal, 
 or more frequent than the expressions of assent or dissent, the former 
 by a nod of the head, the latter by a shake of the head. In the words 
 
 * Latham, Eng. Lang. § 259. 
 
254 OF ADVERBS. [CHAP. Xllli 
 
 of our Saviour, too, the verbal expressions are as short and distinct as 
 possible : "Ecw cie o \6yoe. vfiwv Nat, va\, "Ov, ov. " Sit autem 
 sermo vester, Est, est, Non, non. " Let your communication be Yea, 
 yea, Nay, nay." In the Gothic, " Siyai than waurda izwar Ta, ya, 
 Ne, ne." Yet it is remarkable, that in classical literature generally 
 such simple expressions of assent or dissent seldom or never occur, at 
 least in the plain and direct mode in which we constantly employ 
 them. One would expect to find frequent use of them, if anywhere, 
 in Plato's Dialogues, where the reasoning of Socrates is so generally 
 carried on by interrogation. But, on the contrary, the answers are for 
 the most part given in such terms as"E<77-i ravra, " These things are 
 so;" 'Ovk loriv, "it is not;" IIwc <Toir, "how not;" r\ f.njv, "what 
 else?" Haw jiev ovv, "wholly so ;" T Ev Xeyetg, "you say well;" 
 qvtuq, "just so ;" ovdafxojg, " by no means;" 'Eoike ye irwg, "at least 
 'tis rather probable ;" ovk eoikev, " 'tis not probable ;" tyaa\ yovv, " so 
 at least they say ;" 'E^et yap \6yov, " why, 'tis reasonable." Some- 
 times, indeed, the answer is by the short word Nat ; but this, though 
 translated " yea," in the text above quoted, conveys to a classical ear, 
 somewhat of a less positive assertion; implying, when used respon- 
 sively, rather a submission to the person addressed than a confident 
 assertion of the party using it : ex. gr. 'Ovkovv 6p$tig z$r\v (b Adel- 
 ftavre; Nat, ?) c)' 6c, "'Was I not right,' said I, 'O Adimantus?' 
 ' Certainly,' said he."* To understand the nature of the responsive 
 words yes and no, we must advert to what has before been said of 
 interrogative sentences, and the interrogative mood of verbs. The 
 interrogator states a fact as unknown to or doubted by himself, in its 
 general existence, or in some of its circumstances ; and he requires from 
 the respondent an assertion affirming or denying that which he has 
 stated as doubtful or unknown. The question proposed is simple or 
 complex. If simple, the answer may be in the same words, mutatis 
 mutandis, as the question: if complex it cannot. The Greeks and 
 Romans called the simple question 'Epuj-j^a, interrogation and the 
 complex, Jlv(Tfxa, percontatio ; which distinction may be illustrated by 
 comparing the proceedings on a criminal trial by jury with those on a 
 coroner's inquest. The simple question put to the jury in the former 
 case is an 'Epwr/^a, " Is the prisoner guilty?" and the answer may 
 be given in the very same words transposed, " The prisoner is guilty." 
 The complex question in the other case is a Uvcr/ia. How did the 
 person, whose body you are to examine, come by his death? Which 
 may branch into many simple questions, as did he die by the act of 
 God ? or by his own hands ? or by the hands of another ? If by his 
 own hands, was he at the time sane, or insane ? If by the hands of 
 another, is that person known or unknown ? If known, was it A., B„, 
 or C, &c, all, or which of them ? And whatever the state of the facts 
 may be, the complex question first proposed cannot be answered by 
 transposing its terms, nor by any other simple response. With 
 * Plato, Rep. L 4. 
 
CHAP. XIH.] OF ADVERBS. 255 
 
 complex questions, the words yes and no have nothing to do ; but sup- 
 posing a simple question to be put, and answered affirmatively, by 
 transposing its terms, as "Is there peace at present between France 
 and England ?" — " There is peace at present between France and 
 England," — it must immediately occur to any one that the answer would 
 be perfectly intelligible, if all the words after " there is " were dropt as 
 superfluous ; and equally so if the answer were " there is not? So, if 
 it were asked, " Is it true that A. B. is guilty of the felony of which 
 he stands indicted?" the full answer would be, " It is true that A. B. 
 is guilty of the felony of which he stands indicted," but it would be 
 equally intelligible to say briefly "it is" or "it is not." The super- 
 fluous words then would not long be retained in use ; and the brief 
 answers given would be exactly equivalent to yes or no : hence it is 
 probable that these two words may have had some connection, histori- 
 cally, with the assertions " there is " and " there is not," or " it is " 
 and " it is not." 
 
 400. We have in modem English three forms of the affirmative Yes.' 
 word in question, viz., Yes, Yea, and Ay ; which last, from its imme- Ay?' 
 mortally exclusive use in Parliamentary voting,, may probably have 
 been at an early period of our history the most prevalent form. Be 
 this as it may, I shall first examine certain explanations which 
 have been given of yes, the word at present used on all ordinary 
 occasions, for affirmation. Mr. Tooke labours to derive yes from the 
 French ayez, "have it," "enjoy it." This is not the happiest of his 
 etymologies, at least it is not one of the best supported ; for he quotes 
 Chaucer's Romaunt of tlie Rose very much at random, in support of his 
 conjecture : — 
 
 And after, on the daunce went 
 
 Largesse, that set al her entent 
 
 For to ben honorable and fre ; 
 
 Of Alexander's kynne was she ; 
 
 Her most joye was ywis, 
 
 Whan that she yafe, and sayd HAUE THIS. 
 
 Where Mr. Tooke says, " Which might, with equal propriety, have 
 been translated : — 
 
 When she gave, and said yes." 
 
 The most frigid critic could not well have missed the spirit of his 
 author more completely. Largesse, or liberality, is personified, like 
 Timon, scattering her gifts on all sides, and not waiting for any 
 demand, to which she might answer, " yes." So we find, from the 
 admirable scenes with Lucullus and Lucius, that Timon had been in the 
 habit of surprising them with unexpected presents : — 
 
 ^ Lucullus. One of Lord Timon's men ?— A gift, I warrant. Why, this hits 
 right : I dreamt of a silver bason and ewer to-night. Flaminius, honest Flaminius, 
 you are very respectively welcome, sir. (Fill me some wine.) And how does that 
 honorable, complete, and free-hearted gentleman of Athens, thy very bountiful 
 good lord and master ? 
 
25G OF ADVERBS. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 Flam. His health is well, sir. 
 
 Lucul. I am right glad his health is well, sir — and what hast thou there, under 
 thy cloak, pretty Flaminius ? 
 
 # * # * * * 
 
 Serv. May it please your honor, my lord hath sent — 
 
 Lucius. Ha ! What hath he sent ? I am so much endeared to that lord : he is 
 ever a sending- How shall I thank him, thinkst thou ? — And what hath he sent 
 now? 
 
 In like manner, Largesse set all her pleasure in free, spontaneous, 
 and unexpected acts of bounty, with the munificence of a mighty 
 monarch, another Alexander, surprising those whom she benefited by 
 the sudden exclamation, " Have this !" If ouf yes were derived from 
 ayez, we should find the latter word use'd in that sense in some of the 
 French dialects ; but this circumstance nowhere occurs.. Nor is it 
 very clear, that the word ayez was used in French before yes was used 
 in English ; since it appears to be a corruption of avez ; which was 
 taken from havez, or habez, part of the very ancient verb haben,. of 
 which the radical hab, in the sense of our word have, was common to 
 the Latin with all the Gothic languages ; for the Latin verb was 
 habere, the Mseso-Gothic haban, the Anglo-Saxon habban and hcebban, 
 the Frankish, Alamannic, and modern German haben, the Icelandic 
 hafa, the Danish haffne, the Swedish hafwa, the Dutch hebben ; and it 
 even seems to have been used in one dialect of the Greek language ; for 
 Hesychius and Phavorinus prove that a/Sets was used for e'x^c, par- 
 ticularly by the Pamphylians, and from this root an infinity of nouns 
 are derived in the northern languages, as well as in the Semitic from 
 the Hebrew niH havah. It would therefore require some diligence of 
 investigation, to discover at what period in the history of the Frankish 
 or French language, the distinctive b or v of the radical word was 
 dropped in the imperative ayez ; and it could not have been long after 
 that period, if at all, that the imperative was converted, by common 
 use, into an adverb among the French ; and again, at a much later 
 period, that this adverb was, adopted from the Norman-French into 
 the Norman-Saxon, from whence it must have descended to the 
 modern English ; not one of the steps in which supposed progress has 
 Mr. Tooke attempted to verify; nor is it probable that the attempt, 
 if made, would have led to any confirmation of his conjectural 
 etymology of the word yes. Dr. Johnson derives yes from the Anglo- 
 Saxon yise, and indeed the word is found in that language written 
 yise, yese, yyse, with the Saxon 3. Supposing then that our yes may 
 be immediately derived from yese, it remains to be seen whether the 
 latter word can be traced to a higher source ; and here I should be 
 disposed to avail myself of the suggestion of Junius (who explains yes 
 as a contraction of yea is), so far at least as to derive the Saxon yese 
 from yea, which seems to have been a very ancient affirmative in that 
 language, and is identical with our present yea. Mr. Tooke indeed 
 suggests that yes and yea are of very different origin, the one being 
 from the French verb avoir, the other from some northern verb (he 
 
HAP. XIII.] OF ADVERBS. 257 
 
 does not exactly determine which) that signifies " to own." Now, 
 verbs of this signification are also very numerous, as well as the adjec- 
 tives and substantives derived from them. Thus the Gothic verb is 
 aigan, the Anglo-Saxon agan, whence our verb to owe is derived ; the 
 Icelandic eiga, the Swedish cega, the Alamannic eigan, and with these 
 probably the Greek 'iyeiv has some affinity. Nor is the adjective less 
 general, with the sense of own, proprius. In Gothic it is aigin, in 
 Anglo-Saxon agen, whence the old Scottish awin, and old English 
 owen, the Alamannic eigan, the Danish eget, the Icelandic eyga, and the 
 Dutch eygen. It does not, however, happen in these languages gene- 
 rally, that the affirmative adverb, or interjection, has the form of any 
 part of the verb, or indeed much resemblance to it. Our yea is 
 undoubtedly the Mseso-Gothic ya, yai, old German ya, yo, Anglo- 
 Saxon ya, yea, Icelandic, Swedish, Danish, German, and Dutch, ya ; 
 from which various words are derived in several of those languages, as 
 the Gothic yaiilian, to approve, and frayethan, to disapprove ; the 
 Icelandic yaord, consent, oeyahen, to affirm ; the Swedish beyaka, to 
 affirm ; the German yaher, a complyer ; yawort, a consent, &c. It 
 seems also to be connected with the Sanscrit affirmative particle (as it 
 has been called) ya, yai* Some grammarians derive it from the 
 Hebrew jah (or yah) Jehovah ; but this can hardly be taken in its 
 plain and literal sense. The Hebrews surely would not have profaned 
 the name of the Almighty by introducing it into common and trivial 
 discourse ; and the heathens, who could learn the sacred appellation 
 only through the Hebrews, can less probably be supposed to have 
 adopted it. The only way in which it seems that this etymology can 
 be at all supported is by reference to the verb fT>n hay ah, to be, with 
 which the name of the great " I Am" has no doubt a connection, as 
 the Being of Beings, He who alone is of himself, and the cause of 
 being to all things that exist. In the Maeso-Gothic there is an evident 
 connection between ya and the pronouns and adverbs of pronominal 
 origin, so, it, this, and that : — 
 
 Ya-in s (ille ) ' ' this man , " 
 
 Ya-ind (illuc) " to that place," 
 
 Ya-thau (forsan) " it may be so" 
 
 Ya-u (si) " be it, that," 
 
 Yu (ja m ) " a t this time." 
 
 In point of signification ya or yea agrees with the Greek ovtmq, and 
 the Latin sic ; both which are connected with pronouns, and both 
 employed as words of responsive affirmation. Thus Socrates, arguing 
 with Alcibiades that the soul, and not the body, is the true self, says, 
 ' Ogtiq apa rwr rov a(o jj-citoq yivojaicet, ra avrov, aXX ovy avrbv 
 eyvwKEv — " Whosoever then knows his body, knows what belongs to 
 himself; but does not know himself :""j" to which Alcibiades replies 
 Ovtwq ; as if he had said, " it is so ;" " it is as you say." The Latin 
 
 * Bopp, Comp. Gram. §§ 371, 385. t p lato, First Alcih. 
 
 2. . S 
 
258 OF ADVERBS. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 sic, like the modern Italian si, was used as we employ yes. The gra- 
 dations by which it reached this power of expression, may be collected, 
 from the following passages in Terence, to be sic est factum — sic est 
 ■ — sic. 
 
 i. " Quid narras ? Sic est factum.'" — What (tale) do you 
 
 tell? The fact is so* 
 ii. "Datur ilia Pamphilo hodie nuptum ? Sic est." Is she 
 
 given to Pamphilus to be married ? It is SO.f 
 iii. " Itane ais — Phanium relictam solam ? Sic." What do 
 you say — that Phanium was left by herself? — So 
 (i. e. yes, I say so).J 
 
 The Greek ovtioq is a mere adverbial form of the pronominal ovtoq, 
 " this person :" and the Latin sic is in like manner connected with the 
 pronoun se, which in the dative is si-bi, and with the verb sit, which 
 was anciently written si-et. 
 
 Besides the mere expression of acquiescence in a question or de- 
 mand, yea has, in its modern use, a particular force which answers to 
 the Latin imo ; and imo, it is to be observed, is really the pronoun 
 im, which occurs constantly for eum in the remaining fragments of the 
 Laws of the Twelve Tables ; as, " si im aliquips occisit, joure ccesus 
 esto," where Macrobius says : ab eo quod est is, non eum, casu accu- 
 sative), sed im dixerunt. In this sense of the word yea, Milton says, 
 
 They durst abide 
 
 Jehovah thund'ring out of Sion, thron'd 
 Between the cherubim — yea, often plac'd 
 Within his sanctuary itself their shrines. 
 
 It is somewhat remarkable, in the English idiom, that the word nay 
 (the antipodes, as one would think, of yea) is used in the very same 
 sense as that which we have just described. Thus Dryden says, 
 " This allay of Ovid's writings is sufficiently recompensed by his other 
 excellences ; nay, this very fault is not without its beauties." What 
 is still more singular, Ben Jonson uses both yea and nay with the 
 same augmentative force in one and the same sentence : "A good 
 man always profits by his endeavour ; yea, when he is absent ; nay, 
 when dead, by his example and memory." In all these passages, yea 
 seems still to bear its relation to the pronoun this ; for the meaning is, 
 " they durst abide Jehovah thundering out of Sion ; this they did and 
 often more." " A good man profits by his endeavours ; this he does 
 when present, and even when absent :" and the word nay only serves 
 still further to complete the same sense ; for, in the instances above 
 quoted, the meaning is, " the allay of Ovid's writings is recompensed 
 by other excellences : this is the case, and not only this, but the very 
 fault has its beauties." " A good man profits us by his endeavours 
 when absent: this he does, and not only this, but even when he is 
 dead, we profit by his example and his memory." 
 
 * Adelphi, a. 3, sc. 4. f And., a. 2, sc. 1. \ Phorm., a. 2, sc. 2. 
 
CHAP. XIII.] OF ADVERBS. 259 
 
 There is still one more use of yea, which confirms the view here 
 taken of its import ; as in the third chapter of Genesis — " Yea ? Hath 
 God said, ye shall not eat of every tree in the garden ?"* Here the 
 word yea has an interrogative force ; and means " is this so V Do you 
 say this — namely, that God hath forbidden you to eat of every tree ? 
 
 In fine, the conception always expressed by yea is that of true and 
 affirmative existence. Hence Dr. Hammond, explaining the passage 
 " all the promises of God in him are yea and amen" (2 Cor. i. 20), 
 says, " that is, they are verified, which is the importance of yea ; and 
 confirmed, which is meant by amen." Now, the conception of positive 
 existence, as applied to a particular thing or event, is expressed by the 
 words " it is," or " this is ;" and if there be an ellipsis of either word, 
 the same conception may be expressed by the other word. In this 
 view of the subject, it seems not unreasonable to conclude that the 
 word ya may have been originally used either as a pronoun, or as a 
 part of the verb of existence ; and it is to be remembered, that in 
 many, perhaps in all languages, the verb of existence is merely ex- 
 pressed by a pronoun. 
 
 Ay appears to be merely yea, a little varied in pronunciation, Dr. 
 Johnson, indeed, suggests that it may be derived from the Latin aio ; 
 but it is more probable that the Latin aio and nego, and the English 
 ay and nay, are derived from some more ancient common origin. Ay 
 has some slight differences of application from yea, as yea has from 
 yes ; but this is no more remarkable than the different force and effect 
 which, as we have already seen, is given in different cases to the same 
 word, yea, In the following passage from Shakspeare's Henry VI. ay 
 expresses somewhat more of passionate and proud reproof, than if the 
 word yea were employed :■ — 
 
 Remember it ; and let it make thee crest-fall'n ; 
 Ay, and abate this thy abortive pride. 
 
 As yea appears to have been a variation of ay, so was ay varied into 
 /; but without any change of meaning : — - 
 
 Hath Romeo slain himself? Say thou but /; 
 
 And that bare vowel, I, shall poison more 
 
 Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice. Romeo and Juliet. 
 
 With respect to the other adverb aye, always (for it is a totally 
 different word), we shall have occasion to consider it hereafter. 
 
 401. Our No and Nay belong to a very large class of negatives, No. 
 which are found in almost all the languages which have been called Nay " 
 Indo-European, ex. gr. the Sanskrit and Zend na, Persian ne, Latin 
 ne, ni, non, Russian, Polish, and Bohemian ne, nie, neni, Gothic and 
 old German ne, Anglo-Saxon na, ne, no, Low Saxon neh, Icelandic, 
 Danish, and Swedish, ney, Dutch neen, German nein, nie, Italian no, 
 non, French non, nenni, Spanish ne, &c, with all their compounds and 
 derivatives. The conception which enters into the signification of all 
 
 * Genes, iii. 1. 
 
 s2 
 
260 OF ADVERBS. [CHAP. XIII,. 
 
 these words is an universal and primary one in the human mind ; 
 being, as it were, the bound and limit of all other conceptions. The 
 following are the remarks of the President De Brasses on this subject : 
 " Man, in order to communicate his perceptions, has occasion to 
 express, not only existing objects, and the manner of their existence, 
 but also in what manner they do not exist. And so with regard to 
 feelings, he has occasion to make known whether they are agreeable 
 to his will, or not agreeable to it. It is necessary then, that besides 
 the different radicals serving to express positive ideas, and different 
 classes of objects, he should have another radical, which may serve to 
 express a negative idea ; appropriated merely to indicate that what he 
 describes is not in what he wishes to describe. One single radical 
 will always suffice for that effect, to whatever object it may be applied. 
 Negation being an absolute and privative sensation, a mere counter- 
 assertion, it is quite enough that we have one vocal sign, one organic 
 articulation, to advertise the hearer, that what we say is not in the 
 subject of which we speak." Having already adverted to the concep- 
 tion of negation generally, it is sufficient here to observe, that every 
 child, in the first glimmering of reason, must necessarily form such a 
 conception, and that it does in fact acquire, among its first articulate 
 sounds, the sound which expresses that conception. The child has as 
 distinct a conception that its nurse is not present, or that its food is 
 not agreeable to its palate, as it has of the opposite circumstances. It 
 may perhaps be urged, that this negative conception is in its very 
 nature adjectival ; that it can only be applied in the manner of an 
 attribute to some other conception which is of a substantive nature. 
 " II est impossible" says De Brasses, " de former un Nom absolument 
 privatif; cest a dire, une locution, qui ne contienne pas une idee vraiment 
 positive.'''' " It is impossible to form a noun (substantive) absolutely 
 privative ; that is to say, an expression which does not contain an 
 idea really positive." Be it so ; but at least the adjectival conception 
 may be applied, in the manner of all other conceptions of the same 
 class, to modify substantives, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs : thus we 
 may apply the negative words or particles no, not, and un, to modify 
 the substantive man, the verb is, the adjective wise, or the adverb 
 always, in the following phrases': — 
 
 No man is always wise. 
 
 Man is not wise always. 
 
 Man is always unwise. 
 
 Man is never wise (i.e. at no time wise). 
 
 The different forms of negation are confounded in most languages or 
 dialects. The Latin ne, non, and nee were in early times used indif- 
 ferently, and so were the English ne, no, not, nor. In a fragment of 
 the Laws of Numa Pompilius, preserved by Fulvius Ursinus, we 
 find nei for ne :- — • 
 
 Set JTomimm folminis occisit, im sopera genua nei tolito. } 
 
CHAP. XIII.] OF ADVERBS. 261 
 
 Again, in a fragment of the first Tribunitian Law, nee is used for ne — 
 Sei quis aliuta faxsit cum pequnia familiaq sacer estod: sei quis 
 im oxcisit paricida NEC estod. 
 
 Again, in the Laws of the Twelve Tables — 
 
 Patris familias quel en do testato monitor quoique souos lieres NEC 
 escit. 
 
 In old English ne was used for not and for nor. 
 
 i. For not in the Harleian MS. 2253, fol. 70, b.— 
 Ne ruai no lewed lued libben in londe. 
 
 ii. For not in the Prophecy of Thomas De Essedoune, in the same 
 volume, fol. 127 — 
 
 Whenne skal this be ? 
 
 Nouther in thine tyme, ne in myn. 
 
 No was used in the same two senses. 
 
 i. For not in the romance of Alisaunder — 
 Alisaunder and his folk alle 
 No had noght passed theo halvendall. 
 
 ii. For nor, in the Description of Cokaygne — 
 Ther nis halle, bure, no bench. 
 In the Scottish dialect nae or no is used for not, and nor for than — 
 They're nae sae wretched's ane wad think. 
 
 Bums. Two, Dogs. 
 Compleitly, mair sweitly 
 
 Scho fridound flat and schairp, 
 Nor muses, that uses 
 
 To pin Apollo's harp. Alex. Montgomery, circ. 1597. 
 
 The particle ne, which forms part of our modern words none, never, 
 &c. was anciently incorporated with many verbs, as, I not, for " I ne 
 wot," or " know not ;" I naboe, for " I ne have ;" I nulle, for " I ne 
 will ;" I nolde, for " I ne would;" it nis, it nas, it nere, for " it ne is," 
 " it ne was," " it ne were :" — 
 
 The hors vanisheth I not in what manere. 
 
 Chaucer. Sq. Tale. 
 
 I nul soffre that no more. Ibid. fol. 55, b. 
 
 Uch a srewe wol hire shrude 
 
 Tha he nabbe nout a smok, &c. Ibid. fol. 61, b. 
 
 Whil God wes on erthe 
 
 And wandrede wyde, 
 
 What was the reson 
 
 Why he nolde ryde ? 
 
 For he nolde no grome 
 
 To go by ys syde. Earl. MS. 2253, fol. 124, b. 
 
 Ther nis londe vnder heuenriche. Earl. MS. 913. 
 
 that he nas wenemyd anon. Lyf of Seint Patrik. 
 
 Wymmen were the best thing 
 That shup our heye heune kyng 
 
 Yef feolc false nere. Earl. MS. 2253, fol. 71. 
 
 402. It is sufficient for the general purposes of communicating 
 

 
 262 OF ADVERBS. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 Negative, thought, that the negative conception should be once expressed in a 
 simple sentence ; but we generally find it redoubled in old English, a 
 circumstance derived from the Anglo-Saxon idiom, as, Ne om ic na 
 Crist, "lam not the Christ" (John i. 20). The same idiom prevails 
 in the modern French, although it was not always observed in that 
 language at an earlier period. In the sixteenth century they said, 
 " Vhabit NEfaict le moyne :" at present the same proverb is expressed 
 thus, " Vhabit NEfait pas le moine." It is difficult to account for the 
 reduplication of the negative upon any other principle than that of the 
 eager desire, which we commonly see in barbarous and ignorant people, 
 to give utterance to their strong feelings and imperfect conceptions, 
 and which usually leads to much tautology in their discourse. This 
 genuine result of barbarism, however, has been sometimes mistaken 
 for a proof of extraordinary learning ; and critics have dignified it with 
 the title of an Archaism, a Hellenism, or some such pompous appella- 
 tion. " The editor of Chaucer," says Hickes, " knowing nothing of 
 antiquity, asserts that the poet imitated the Greeks in using two 
 negatives to express negation more vehemently; whereas Chaucer 
 was entirely ignorant of the Greek language, and only used the two 
 negatives according to the prevailing custom of his own times, when 
 the language had not yet lost its Saxonisms, as, " I ne said none ill." 
 In the Saxon writers, indeed, three and even four successive negatives 
 are sometimes to be found, as, " ne yeseah n,efre nan man God :" 
 " no man ever saw God" (John i. 18). And again, " Ne nan ne 
 dorste of iham dcege hyne nan thing mare axiyean ;" " and no man 
 durst from that day forth ask him any more questions" (Matth. xxii. 
 46). It is to be observed, however, that some of the best of these 
 writers, and particularly the royal translator of Bede's Ecclesiastical 
 History, generally employ but a single negative ; and such also is the 
 uniform style of that venerable monument of Gothic literature the 
 Codex Argenteus. 
 
 Substantive. 403. The last class of separate words, which I shall notice as used 
 adverbially, are nouns substantive. It is manifest that substantives 
 may be used in the formation of compound words to express the attri- 
 butes of attributes. Thus stone, in its primary sense, is a substantive, 
 and blind is an adjective ; but in the compound stone-blind, the former 
 part of the word modifies the latter, as much as if we were to say, " a 
 stony, or stonelike blindness." In like manner, substantives standing 
 alone may be taken adverbially, as modifying either a verb or an 
 adjective. The latter mode is the less common in modern English, 
 but it occurs not unfrequently in the older dialects : the former mode 
 is common in most languages. The adverbial use of the substantive 
 to modify a verb, somewhat resembles the ablative absolute of the 
 Latin grammarians. It expresses a conception simply, without 
 asserting it to exist or not to exist. The construction is consequently 
 elliptical, and the sense may always be more fully expressed by adding 
 the assertion. I shall illustrate this by a single example. 
 
CHAP. XIII.] OF ADVERBS. 263 
 
 404. While is the Gothic and Anglo-Saxon hwila, and Alamannic while. 
 uuila, time, or a certain space of time, which seems to be of the same 
 origin as our wheel, in the Anglo-Saxon hweol, Danish and Swedish 
 hiul, Icelandic hiool, and Dutch wiel, which are derived, by J. Davies, 
 from the Welsh chwyl, turning, and seem to have some affinity with 
 the Latin volvo, and Gothic ivalwyan, to roll ; nor is there any more 
 apt or more common symbol of time than the continual rolling of a 
 wheel. Be this as it may, the word while in English and iveile in 
 German is used substantively for a space of time, as in German es ist 
 eine gute weile, "it is a good while," or "a long time." So in the 
 relation of the meeting of Joseph with his father Jacob (Gen. xlvi. 29), 
 " he fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while" We find 
 the English adverb while used to modify verbs with reference to various 
 portions of time, ex. gr. : — 
 
 i. During the whole continuance of a given time. 
 
 ii. During a certain time to be terminated in future. 
 
 hi. At different intervals of time. 
 
 iv. For a short space of time. 
 
 " I will sing praises unto my God, while I have any being," (i. e. 
 during the whole time that I exist), Psalm cxlvi. v. 2. 
 
 In the Scottish Act of Parliament, 1587, the enactment is ordained 
 to last " Ay, and quhil His Hienes nixt parliament." So in Alexander 
 Montgomery : — 
 
 Cum se now, in rae now 
 
 The butterflie and can dill 
 
 And as scho flies quhyl scho be fyrt. 
 
 In this sense, which at present exists only in provincial usage, while 
 states a time with a definite future termination, ex. gr. until the 
 meeting of the Parliament, or until the insect be burnt. 
 
 The third use is also provincial, and answers to our word " some- 
 times," as in the well-known anecdote of an English traveller, who had 
 been confined at a village in Scotland several days together by the 
 rain, and who, at length, losing his patience, asked the landlord pet- 
 tishly, "What! does it rain here always?" To which the other 
 replied with a smile, " Hoot, na ! it snaws whyles." 
 
 The fourth use occurs often in our translation of the Scriptures, as 
 when Samuel said to Saul, " Stand thou still awhile that I may show 
 thee the word of God" (1 Sam. ix. 27). The same idiom occurs in 
 the Goldin Terge of Dunbar : — 
 
 Acquentance new embrasit me a quhyle, 
 And favourt me till men micht gae a myle, 
 Syne tuk bir hef, I saw hir nevir mair. 
 
 In a very ancient English love-song, whyle is used in this sense without 
 the article. (Harl. MSS. 2253, fol. 63, b.) 
 
 Betere is tholien whyle sore 
 Then mournen euermore. 
 

 264 OF ADVERBS. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 It is somewhat remarkable that though in the German language the 
 substantive weile is not used adverbially in the same senses as while is 
 in English, yet it has the same adverbial, or rather conjunctional sense, 
 that we give in matters of reasoning to since. Thus the German weil 
 implies the consequence or dependence of one fact on another, as 
 Weil ers verlanget, so soil ershaben: " since he desires it he shall 
 have it." The word since has the primary signification of time, from 
 the Anglo-Saxon sith, and old English sithe, as in Chaucer — 
 
 And such he was iproved ofte sithes. 
 
 The word season is also used by old authors to signify time, as is 
 the obsolete word stound. 
 
 In the Morale Proverbes of Crystyne, printed by Caxton, a.d. 1478, 
 we find the expressien long saison for "a long while," or "a long 
 time :" — 
 
 A temperat man cold from hast asseured 
 May not lightly long saison be miseured. 
 
 So in the Dictes and Sayings of Philosophers, printed 1477, " There 
 was that season in my company a worshipful gentleman called Lewis 
 de Bretaylles." 
 
 Stound occurs adverbially in Octouian Imperator — 
 
 Men blamede the bochere oft stoundys 
 For his sone. 
 
 The compounds of while still in use such as meanwhile, erewhile, re- 
 quire no explanation. They plainly express the conception of time, 
 and signify "in the meantime" "sometime before," &c. Erewhile 
 was anciently written whilere, and so we find in the different old 
 dialects whilom and umquhill, which both agree with the old word 
 sometime for " formerly." 
 Recapituia- 405. Thus are the considerations exhausted, which arise out of the 
 definition of an adverb, as above proposed. I have shown that an 
 adverb is properly to be reckoned among the parts of speech ; that it 
 is a word added to a sentence perfect in the expression or mind of the 
 speaker ; and that it serves to modify an attributive — that is to say, 
 primarily a verb or an adjective (taking the latter term in its widest 
 sense), and secondarily another adverb. I have endeavoured to reduce 
 those modifications systematically to certain classes (a task hitherto 
 but little thought of) referring the modifications of verbs first to the 
 corporeal relations of place and time, positive and relative, and then 
 to the mental relations propositional or argumentative ; the former 
 applying either to affirmation or negation, clear or doubtful, or else to 
 interrogation and response ; and the latter to the connection of pro- 
 positions, particularly of the premises with the conclusion. The 
 modifications of the adjective I have considered as affecting either 
 their quantity or their quality. The positive quantity is either con- 
 tinuous or discrete ; the relative admits of intension or remission : 
 modifications of quality are also positive or relative, and the latter 
 
CHAP. XIII.] OF ADVERBS. 265 
 
 regard either similitude or degree. The secondary modifications 
 (viz., those of adverbs by adverbs) follow the course of the primary:* 
 and I have here noticed certain classes of words, which, as effecting 
 no modification of an attribute, are in my opinion improperly admitted 
 into the class of adverbs. I have next considered the methods by 
 which the expression of the modification of attributives is effected in 
 language, viz., by an adverbial phrase, a compound word, or a single 
 word, which constitutes the part of speech we call an adverb. And 
 lastly, I have shown by examples, that the words which may be em- 
 ployed to perform the function of adverbs, with or without inflection, 
 are such as have been or may be employed to perform the function of 
 any of the necessary parts of speech, viz., adjectives proper, participial 
 and pronominal, verbs (particularly as to the responsives Yes and No), 
 and even nouns substantive. And so much for the adverb, which, 
 with the parts of speech before examined, completes the list of those 
 necessary or accessorial to the formation of enunciative sentences. 
 

 
 ( 266 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 OF INTERJECTIONS. 
 
 The inter- 406. Certain words or sounds are generally known by the name of 
 part of s 8 Interjections ; but in proposing to examine them with reference to the 
 speech. science of language, we are met with an objection in limine, that they 
 are not parts of speech, and therefore do not deserve the attention of 
 a grammarian. The learned Sanctius - says : — " Interjectionem non 
 esse partem oration is sic ostendo : quod naturale est idem est apud 
 omnes : sed gemitus et signa lsetitise idem sunt apud omnes : sunt 
 igitur naturales. Si vero naturales, non sunt partes orationis. Nam 
 ese partes, secundum Aristotelem, ex instituto, non natura debent 
 constare." The error here arises from giving too great a latitude to a 
 proposition which within certain limits is true ; viz., that words are 
 significant ex instituto ; for in truth this proposition applies only to 
 nouns (i. e., names of distinct conceptions) and to words derived from 
 them. But in the nature of the human mind, intellect is mixed up 
 with feeling, the will is often confounded with the reason ; and our 
 desires, or fears, unconsciously modify our conceptions or assertions. 
 We express in speech the transitions and mixed states of the mind, as 
 well as its clear, fixed, and determinate distinctions ; and hence the 
 interjection rises, as will presently be seen, from a scarcely articulate 
 sound to a passionate, and almost to an enunciative sentence. What 
 we learn from Mr. Tooke on this part of our subject is as inconsistent, 
 as it is vague and declamatory. "The brutish, inarticulate inter- 
 jection" (says he), " which has nothing to do with speech, and is only 
 the miserable refuge of the speechless, has been permitted, because 
 beautiful and gaudy, to usurp a place among words." How can any 
 modes of utterance be at once beautiful, gaudy, brutish, and inar- 
 ticulate ? And what is meant by saying that the interjection, which 
 somehow or other has been enabled to occupy a place among words, 
 has nothing to do with speech, and is only the miserable refuge of the 
 speechless ? 
 is universally 407. Mr. Tooke himself uses such expressions as "Oh!" "Oh, 
 Sir!" "Oh, my dear Sir!" " Oh, Sir, your humble servant !" Well! 
 Why! Come! &c, which assert nothing, and have no connection 
 either with the preceding or following sentences ; but are mere inter- 
 jections, or interjectional phrases, Trape/jifioXcu as the Greeks calls them, 
 thrown in between the main parts of the discourse. Yet he says 
 " where speech can be employed, they are totally useless ; and are 
 always insufficient for the purpose of communicating our thoughts." 
 " And indeed," adds he, " where will you look for the interjection ? 
 Will you find it amongst laws, or in books of civil institutions, in 
 
CHAP. XIV.] OF INTEEJECTIONS. 267 
 
 history, or in any treatise of useful arts or sciences ? No : you must 
 seek for it in rhetoric and poetry, in novels, plays, and romances." 
 Mr. Tooke has forgotten one book, in which interjections abound, and 
 fill the mind with impressions of the highest sublimity and pathos — 
 that book is the Bible. But if the interjection had only to do with 
 " rhetoric and poetry," surely its sphere would not be narrow. If a 
 knowledge of it only led us properly to appreciate the lofty mind of 
 Demosthenes or Cicero, to read with true relish the immortal verses 
 of Homer, Virgil, Tasso, Milton — if it were only to be met with 
 in the " plays " of Sophocles, Plautus, Moliere, Shakspeare ; or 
 in the " romances and novels " of Sidney, Cervantes, Le Sage, 
 Fielding, or Scott, how lamentable must be the taste, how blind the 
 philosophy, which would decline the examination of this interesting 
 part of speech ! And is the interjection confined to books ? No, it 
 is heard in private and in public, from each sex and every age, in tones 
 of the tenderest love or the most malignant hate, in shouts of joy, in 
 ecstacies of pious rapture, in deep anguish, remorse, despair ; in short, 
 from the impulse of every human feeling. Nay, we are taught to 
 believe, that it exists in the Hallelujahs of angels, and in the continual 
 Holy ! Holy ! Holy ! of the cherubim and seraphim. Now, as a 
 botanist would but imperfectly teach his science, if he were to tell his 
 scholars that certain large portions of the vegetable world were be- 
 neath their notice, as weeds ; or as he would be a poor mineralogist 
 who should disdain to cast an eye on pebbles ; so he is a miserable 
 grammarian who affects to disregard the numerous interjections and 
 interjectional phrases which give such force, tenderness, variety, and 
 truth to the works of the rhetorician and poet, and contribute so much 
 toward rendering language an exact picture of the human mind. 
 
 408. Assuming, then, that there are many sounds or words, more Definition. 
 or less perfectly articulated, which occur in human speech, evincing 
 actual feeling, but not reducible to any of the parts of speech above 
 discussed, I say, they form the part of speech called an Interjection. 
 Its definition, indeed, is differently given by different grammarians. 
 According to Charisius, Comminianus briefly defines the interjection 
 thus, " Pars orationis significans adfectum animi." — Caius Julius 
 Romanus thus, " Pars orationis motum animi significans ;" and 
 Palaemon thus, " Interjectiones sunt quae nihil docibile habent, signi- 
 ficant tamen adfectum animi." Diomedes gives the following defi- 
 nition — " Pars orationis adfectum mentis adsignificans voce incondita." 
 Vossius, however, observes that apage ! euge ! and many others, are 
 not voces inconditce; nor is the signifying an affection of the mind 
 peculiar to the interjection, for even adverbs do this, as iracunde, 
 irridenter, timide, &c. He also censures the following definition, Dictio 
 invariabilis quce interjicitur orationi ad declarandum animi affectum; 
 for, says he, " interjections are not always thrown in between the parts 
 of a sentence ; since we may properly begin a sentence with an inter- 
 jection." His own definition is, " Vox affectum mentis significans, ac 
 
208 
 
 OF INTERJECTIONS. 
 
 fCHAP. XIV. 
 
 Feelings. 
 
 Their 
 airangement. 
 
 citra verbi opem sententiam complens." This definition agrees in the 
 main with that which is to be gathered from the works of that 
 excellent old grammarian, Priscian ; viz., "Vox quae alicuju spassionis 
 animi pulsn, per exclamationem, interjicitur :" and on a full consideration 
 of all these authorities, I would propose the following definition — An 
 interjection is a part of speech showing forth any human feeling, without 
 asserting its existence. 
 
 409. To illustrate this definition, it may be necessary to explain 
 the import here given to the term " human feeling," and to state the 
 different modes in which such a feeling may be shown forth in language 
 without asserting its existence. First, then, it is to be observed, that 
 I use the term " human feeling," as Comprehending all those im- 
 pressions, pleasurable or painful, which we receive through our bodily 
 frame, our intellectual faculties, or our spiritual constitution : and 
 these in their several degrees and modifications. In this view, so far 
 is the interjection from being a " brutish " thing, that the nice and 
 philosophical examination of it, as it has been practised in the different 
 languages and ages of the world, would furnish matter for a better 
 treatise than was ever yet written on the sensibilities and sympathies 
 of human nature. Mr. Tooke declares that " the dominion of speech 
 is erected upon the downfal of interjections." If so, the dominion of 
 speech never was erected, nor ever will be, till the minds of all men 
 are "a standing pool," incapable of being moved or incited to action 
 even by the naked calculations of a cold, exclusive, hateful selfishness. 
 
 410. I do not pretend to reduce the infinite variety of human 
 feelings to a systematic arrangement. The only attempt of the kind 
 in relation to grammar, which deserves attention, is that of the very 
 ingenious Bishop Wilkins ; but it is a mere outline, and is meant to 
 include only "rude, incondite sounds," the "natural signs of our 
 mental notions or passions," and " several of which are common with 
 us to brute creatures." Tt is as follows : — 
 
 I. Solitary, the result of a surprised 
 I. judgment, denoting 
 i. admiration, heigh ! 
 
 ii. doubt or consideration, hem ! hm ! hy ! 
 iii. contempt, pish ! shy ! tysh ! 
 ii. affection moved by apprehension of good or evil, 
 mirth, ha ! ha ! he ! 
 sorrow, hoi! oh! oh! ah! 
 
 i. past < 
 
 J. j love and pity, ah ! alack ! alas ! 
 
 I ' * \ hate and anger, vauh ! hau ! 
 
 ( desire. O ! O that ! 
 
 aversion, 
 
 phy! 
 
 iii. future 
 
 II. Social, 
 
 I. preceding discourse, 
 i. exclaiming, oh ! soho ! 
 ii. silencing, 'st ! hush ! 
 
CHAP. XIV.] OF INTERJECTIONS. 269 
 
 II. beginning discourse, 
 
 i. to dispose the senses of the hearer, 
 1 1 . bespeaking attention, ho ! oh ! 
 j 2. expressing attention, ha ! 
 ii. to dispose the affections of the hearer, 
 
 1 . by way of insinuation, eja ! now ! 
 
 2. by way of threatening, vse ! wo ! 
 
 Though this scheme in its primary distinctions refers to the different 
 uses of interjections, its ramifications are determined by the sound of 
 the words employed for this purpose. These considerations should 
 be kept apart, as their intermixture leads only to confusion. There- 
 fore, before I examine the different methods which men have followed 
 in giving utterance to their feelings, otherwise than in enunciative 
 sentences, I deem it proper to say something of the feelings them- 
 selves ; though, for the reason already intimated, my notice of them 
 must be brief. I have already observed, that in the opening of our 
 faculties, the earliest conceptions which we form are those of bodily 
 existence ; but even our conceptions are preceded by bodily feelings, 
 each sense is pleasurably or painfully affected by external impressions, 
 and these are soon distinguished from each other, and their existence 
 signified to other persons by different modes of expression. When 
 the mental faculties begin to expand, they connect feelings with con- 
 ceptions, and so with external objects, at first by present sensation 
 making us joyful or sad ; afterwards by memory causing regret or 
 pleasing recollection ; and lastly, by foresight, creating in us hope or 
 fear, desire or aversion. As we advance in the exercises of reason, 
 we feel doubt or confidence, we are surprised at anything new or 
 strange. Again, the social nature of man opens to him new trains of 
 feeling, affectionate fondness, rivalry, enmity ; we approve or disap- 
 prove the conduct of others, we applaud or censure, admire or despise 
 them. Every such state of mind is evinced by a peculiar interjection, 
 distinguished not so much by articulation as by tone, by length or 
 shortness of utterance, or by the look or gesture with which it is ac- 
 companied ; by the abruptness of violent and sudden passion, or the 
 prolonged and gentle murmur of tender affection. Such feelings 
 belong to mankind by their general constitution : others are of a local 
 or temporary nature, and connected with particular objects or events, 
 with religious doctrines and practices, with military ardour, with 
 political party, or personal attachment ; and these add to the bound- 
 less variety of interjectional cries, and words, and phrases. 
 
 411. It remains to be seen what modes of expression, independently Modes o/ 
 of sentences clearly and fully enunciative, language affords for those ex P ression - 
 different feelings ; and these will be found to rise by imperceptible 
 gradation from sounds scarcely articulate to clearer articulations, 
 thence to words formed from these incondite sounds, so to broken 
 phrases, and, lastly, to short sentences interjected without direct 
 relation to those by which they are preceded or followed. 
 
Incondite 
 Consonants. 
 
 Vowels. 
 
 270 OF INTERJECTIONS. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 412. We may observe among the interjections noticed by Bishop 
 Wilkins some which not only are not words, but not even syllables, 
 being designated by consonants alone, such as hm I which he states 
 as expressive of doubt or consideration, and 'st ! which he calls an 
 interjection of silencing. For my part, I own I should scarcely rank 
 such half-uttered sounds among parts of speech ; but if they come to 
 be more clearly pronounced so as to be audibly distinguishable, and 
 when we find the one written in Latin hem ! and the other in French 
 chut ! or in Italian zitto ! I think they may be fairly called (as they 
 are by most philologists) interjections. The mere orthography, how- 
 ever, will help us but little as to the feeling meant to be expressed by 
 these, or indeed any other, truly incondite interjections. Hem ! it is 
 true, may be sometimes taken as expressing doubt or consideration — 
 
 Occaepi mecum cogitare, hem! biduum hie manendum est soli 
 sine ilia ? Terentius, Eun. 4, 28. 
 
 But it is as often taken to express surprise, or exhortation, or com- 
 miseration, or perturbation of mind, or joy, or anger, or other 
 feelings which can only be collected from the context if in writing, 
 or from the look, tone, gesture, or manner, if delivered viva voce. 
 Of the imperfect articulation 'st, R. Stephanus says " ST [or] vox 
 est silentium indicentis. Ter. Phorm. v. 1. 16. Quid? Non is, 
 obsecro, es, quern semper te esse dictitasti ?— C. 'st — S. Quid 
 has metuis fores ? " The Italians use the word zitto ! and the 
 French say chut ! Varchi, in his Ercolano, or Dialogo sopra le lingue, 
 printed at Florence in 1570, says of this word, " II quale zitto, credo 
 che sia tolto da' Latini, i quali, quando volevano, che alcuno stesse 
 cheto, usavano profferire verso quel tale, queste due consonant! 'st, 
 quasi come diciamo noi zitto ! " It is used substantively for the 
 slightest sound possible. Thus Boccaccio says, " Senza far motto, o 
 zitto alcuno;" "without uttering a word, or sound, the slightest 
 possible." It is also used adjectively, with the variation of gender 
 and number, ex. gr. : — 
 
 E i buon soldati, in campo, o in citadella, 
 Si stanno zitti in far la sentinella. Allegri. 
 
 Of the French chut I the Dictionnaire de VAcademie merely says, 
 11 Chut, particule dont on se pert pour imposer silence." 
 
 413. Where the incondite sound is that of a vowel, the articulation 
 is somewhat more distinct ; but, on the other hand, it may be the 
 more easily adapted by the flexible organs of the voice to express 
 different states of the mind : a slight degree of elevation or depression, 
 of length or shortness, of weakness or force, serves to mark a very 
 sensible difference in the emotion meant to be expressed. Hence 
 Cinonio thus speaks of the Italian ah and ahi : — " I varj affetti cui 
 serve questa interiezzione ah ed ahi sono phi di venti ; ma v'abbisogna 
 d'un avvertimento ; che nell' esprimerli sempre diversificano il suono, 
 e vagliono quel tanto che, presso i Latini, ah I proh ! oh ! vce ! hei ! 
 
CHAP. XIV.] OF INTERJECTIONS. 271 
 
 papce ! &c. Ma questa e parte spettante a chi pronunzia, che sappia 
 dar loro l'accento di quell' affettto cui servono ; e sono — d'esclama- 
 zione — di dolersi — di svillaveggiare — di pregare — di gridare minac- 
 ciando — di minacciare — di sospirare — di sgarare — di maravigliarsi — 
 d'incitare — di dsegno — di desiderare — di reprendere — di vendicarsi — 
 di raccomandazione — di commovimento per allegrezza — di lamentarsi 
 — di beffare— ed altri varj." Vossius observes of the Latin ah, that 
 in ancient books it is often written a without the aspiration ; as pro is 
 also written for proh ; and indeed the Greeks write d without the 
 breathing. Thus the 739th and the 746th lines of the Philoctetes are 
 both written 7 A, d, a, d. So in the Plutus of Aristophanes, the old 
 woman, alarmed lest her face should be burnt, cries — 
 
 ■— % a, 
 
 T»jv 'hatia (in pot rtgotrtptf 
 
 Oh ! oh ! Don't put the torch near me ! 
 
 Priscian, too, says that a is the name of a letter, and a preposition, 
 and also an interjection. I need scarcely observe that both ah ! and 
 oh ! are used by English writers as interjections of pain and sorrow. 
 
 In youth alone unhappy mortals live, 
 
 But ah J the mighty bliss is fugitive. Dryden. 
 
 Oh! this will make my mother die with grief. Shakspeare. 
 Dr. Johnson says " Ah, interjection — a word noting sometimes 
 dislike and censure — sometimes contempt and exultation — sometimes, 
 and most frequently, compassion and complaint." He also says " Oh, 
 interjection — an exclamation denoting pain, sorrow, or surprise." 
 The Greek 'Iw and Latin Jo, varying but little in sound from O, were 
 also sometimes used to denote pain or sorrow. Thus Philoctetes, in 
 the agony of his bodily torture, cries tw, lib ; and Polymestor, in the 
 Hecuba of Euripides, uses the same exclamation. Thus Tibullus 
 says— 
 
 Uror, io ! remove, sseva Puella faces ! Lib. ii. Eleg. 4. 
 
 And in Claudian, Io seems to express the agony of grief : — 
 
 Mater io ! seu te Phrygiis in vallibus Ida 
 
 Mygdonio buxus circumsonat horrida cantu ; 
 
 Seu tu sanguineis ululantia Dindyma, Gallis 
 
 Incolis. De Rapt. Proserp. 
 
 The tender and affecting force of the interjection oh ! as an ex- 
 pression of deep-seated grief, was never more strikingly shown than in 
 those lines of my old and ever-honoured friend, Wordsworth : — 
 
 She lived unknown, and few could know 
 
 When Lucy ceased to be ; 
 But she is in her grave — and oh ! 
 
 The difference to me. 
 
 Yet ah, and oh, aspirated and unaspirated, are constantly occurring 
 as marks of slight and transient feeling ; sometimes of contemptuous 
 irony, as in the interjectional phrases of Mr. Tooke, above quoted ; 
 
272 OF INTERJECTIONS. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 and sometimes of grave remonstrance, as in Sidrophel's indignant 
 reply to Hudibras : — 
 
 Oh ! sir, 
 
 Agrippa was no conjuror, 
 
 Nor Paracelsus ; no, nor Behmen ; 
 
 Nor was the dog a Cacodsemon. 
 
 T° r % 414:. ^^ e trans iti° n fr° m these mere incondite consonants and 
 
 vowels to words formed from them is simple and easily to be ac- 
 counted for, since it is natural to name the cause from the effect. 
 Of this we have an obvious example in the Latin vce, used only as a 
 mere vocal interjection in that language, but found in many others, 
 both as an interjection and also as the. root of a numerous train of 
 nouns substantive and adjective, verbs, &c. Thus we find as inter- 
 jections, the Greek 'Oval ; the Mseso-Gothic wai ; the Welsh gwae ; 
 the Anglo-Saxon wa ; the German weh ! And in most of these 
 languages the same sound becomes an interjectional noun, as in 
 German, " wehe den gottlosen ! " woe to the ungodly! Frankish, 
 " uue themo man ! " woe to the man ! in English, woe is me ! Hickes 
 reckons wa is me ! and warn me ! among the Anglo-Saxon interjections 
 of grief. In old English we find " wo the be!" — " woe worth ! " 
 &c. ; and in Scottish " wae's me ! " and " wae's my heart : " — 
 
 Wales wo the be I the fende the confound ! B. De Brunne. 
 
 Where ar those worldlyngs now ? Wo worth them, that euer 
 they were about any kyng ! Latimer. 
 
 Ah, wae be to you Gregory, 
 
 An ill death may you dee ! Ballad of Lord Gregory. 
 
 Wae's my heart that we shou'd sunder ! Scottish Song. 
 
 From wae it is probable came the verb wail, and from waile wa 
 came waileway, welaway, and corruptly welladay. 
 
 Hickes expounds the Anglo-Saxon wala wa ! heu ! proh dolor ! 
 and he adds, in a note, " hsec interjectio frequenter tropice ponitur 
 pro dolore, prsecipue in scriptis Satyrographi, ut : — 
 
 Wote no wyght what war is ther that peace reineth 
 Ne what is witerly weale till welaweye him teache." 
 
 We find it written variously, weylaway, wayleway, waileway, wel 
 
 avoaie 
 
 Betere hem were at home in huere londe, 
 Than forte seche Flemmyssh by the see stronde, 
 Whare routh moni Frensh wyf wryngeth hire honde, 
 Ant singeth weylaway. 
 
 Battle of Bruges. 
 Sche seyd wayleway, 
 
 When hye herd it was so : 
 To her maistresse sche gan say, 
 
 That hye was boun to go. Sir Tristrem. 
 
 Biclept him in his armes twain, 
 And oft alias he gan sain, 
 
 His song was waileway. Amis and Amiloun. 
 
CHAP. XIV.] OF INTERJECTIONS. 273 
 
 I set hem so a worke, by my faie, 
 
 That many a night they songen wel awaie. Chancer. 
 
 Connected with wae and wail is the verb waiment, which Chaucer 
 uses for lament : — 
 
 The swalow Proigne with a sorrowful lay 
 Whan morow come gan make her waimenting. 
 
 Troilus, hook ii. 
 
 Lastly, the Anglo-Saxon wala (in wala wa) seems to be still retained 
 in the Scottish interjection wdly : — 
 
 waly ! waly ! up the hank, 
 
 And waly ! waly ! down the brae ! Scottish Song. 
 
 Of the numerous other nouns and verbs flowing from the ancient 
 and simple interjection vae, with their derivatives, and the changes of 
 signification they have undergone, there will be a fitter opportunity 
 to speak hereafter. 
 
 415. A different class of interjections is formed from fragments of Fragments of 
 sentences. Of this kind, alas ! which Wilkins, ignorant of its true sentences - 
 origin, ranks among " rude incondite sounds, the natural signs of our 
 
 mental notions or passions," will afford an illustration. This word 
 was manifestly adopted into the English language from the French 
 Iielas ! which is only a corruption of the Italian ate lasso, " ah ! 
 weary ! " It does not appear to have been known in England much 
 before the time of Chaucer, who frequently uses it : — 
 
 How shall I doen ? whan shall she come againe ? 
 
 1 note alas ! why let I her go. Troilus, hook v. 
 
 So in the early romances : — 
 
 Thurch the hodi him pight, 
 
 With gile : 
 To deth he him dight 
 
 Alias that ich while ' Sir Tristrem, 
 
 Alias that he no hadde ywite, 
 
 Er the forward were ysmite, 
 
 That hye ond his leman also 
 
 Sostren were and tvinnes to. Lay Le Fraine. 
 
 Quhat sail I think ? Allace quhat reverence 
 
 Sail I mester to your excellence ? The King's Quair. 
 
 Evir allace! than said scho, 
 
 Am I nocht cleirlie tynt ? Peblis to the Play, 
 
 The sensation of weariness, expressed in ahi lasso, is also to be found 
 in the Scottish interjectional phrase " weary fa' you : " — 
 
 Weary fa' you Duncan Gray ! Old Scottish Song. 
 
 416. Some interjections result from the abbreviation of whole sen- Sentences 
 tences, by condensing them into a single word. Thus the perfect con<iensedL 
 sentence, " I pray thee to do this or that," or " not to do it," or 
 
 " I pray thee to tell me," is condensed into the single interjection, 
 prithee ! 
 
 2. t 
 
274 OF INTERJECTIONS. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 Tooke ranks prithee! among adverbs. Johnson does not decide 
 what part of speech it is, but merely calls it " a familiar corruption of 
 pray thee" This corruption, however, becomes in use a real inter- 
 jection. In the following instance the request is merely con- 
 temptuous : — 
 
 Poh ! prithee ! ne'er trouble thy head with such fancies ; 
 But rely on the aid thou shalt have from St. Francis. 
 
 Old Song. 
 
 In the next, the request is more serious, but still the abbreviation of 
 the phrase marks a degree of familiarity : — 
 
 Alas ! why comest thou, at this dreadful moment, 
 
 To shock the peace of my departing soul ? 
 
 Away ! I prithee leave me ! * Howe. 
 
 Again, in these well-known lines, it marks the good-humoured 
 sarcasm of a friendly adviser : — 
 
 Why so pale and wan, fond lover ? ' 
 
 Prithee, why so pale ? Suckling. 
 
 where it is manifest, that the full sentence " I pray thee to tell me " 
 entirely loses its grave and formal character by being converted into 
 an interjection, 
 interjectionai 417. Lastly, a short sentence, or clause of a sentence, is often 
 thrown into discourse in the manner which the Greeks call 7rapefj,fio\rj, 
 and Quintilian and others interjectio, and which may be called an 
 interjectionai phrase, and often answers to a real interjection in another 
 language or dialect. Thus, in old English, the sentence afterwards 
 furnishing the interjection forsooth was inserted at full length (but 
 parenthetically) " for sothe ywis," i. e. " I know it for a truth :" — 
 
 The pauyloun was wrouth, for sothe ywis, 
 
 All of werk of sarsynys. Syr Launfal. 
 
 So the Latin amabo, the future tense of the verb amo, I love, is 
 often introduced interjectionally as an exclamation of fondness : — 
 
 Vide, amabo, si non cum adspicias os impudens 
 
 Videtur. Terentius. 
 
 Engraphius, an old commentator on this passage, says that amabo is 
 used by the poets without any meaning ; but on this Vossius justly 
 remarks, " Si blandientis est, otiosum esse nequit, cum multum 
 blanditise et preces valeant." 
 No absolute 418. From this review of the different modes of expression by 
 which feelings are signified in language, we at once perceive that no 
 precise line can be drawn between interjections consisting of " incon- 
 dite sounds," the " natural signs" of mental emotion, and exclamations 
 derived from a partial exercise of the reasoning faculty ; for among 
 the sounds enumerated by Wilkins we find alas ! (i. e. ahi lasso /) 
 derived from the regular Latin adjective lassus — alack! from the 
 English verb to lack, and Dutch laecken — hush ! from the Gothic verb 
 hausyan — and vce ! identical with the English noun woe. That the 
 
CHAP. XIV.] OF INTERJECTIONS. 275 
 
 noun and the mere incondite sound are used as equivalents, and with 
 the same sort of grammatical construction, we see in the following 
 lines of Butler :■ — ■ 
 
 Intrust it under solemn vows 
 
 Of mum J and silence, and the rose. Uudibras. 
 
 And these are necessary consequences of the fact, on which Ij have 
 often dwelt, that in the constitution of our human nature the active 
 and passive principles, the feelings and perceptions, are closely 
 intertwined, and pass into each other by gradations too fine to be 
 perceptible. The expressions of mere sensible pleasure or pain, or 
 of passion or emotion, as such, are either effected with some degree 
 of volition, or they are extorted by a physical necessity ; but on the 
 one hand it may be doubted whether pure physical necessity can 
 operate so as to produce speech properly so called, that is, with any 
 the slightest degree of articulation. To take a striking instance, that 
 of the Philoctetes of Sophocles : we find him at one time exclaiming 
 'A, d, d, a, at another AT, at, at, al, and again ITa7rd, 7ra7ra, Tva-rcai; 
 but it is manifest that some power, beyond that of mere mechanical 
 impulse, must intervene to give even the slightest of these articulations 
 its difference from the rest. On the other hand, if we admit that some 
 degree of thought enters into all those " voices," which express the 
 emotions of the human mind, then it becomes difficult, if not impos- 
 sible, for us to arrange them grammatically in classes each marked by 
 distinctness of conception' — to distinguish, for instance, in this respect, 
 between ! iw ! euge ! evax ! papas ! fie ! harrow ! pax ! hush ! 
 hurrah ! alas ! bravo ! &c. &c. ; for such words may form an ascending 
 gradation from that which is but just above mechanical impulse to 
 that which is but just below the assertion of a proposition. Where, 
 indeed, such an assertion takes place, that is (speaking as a gramma- 
 rian) where a verb is connected with a noun, there is formed a sen- 
 tence, which may be resolved grammatically into its separate parts of 
 speech. But this is not all — the same difficulty which is found in the 
 ascending scale of expression, occurs in the descending scale. A whole 
 sentence is sometimes suddenly interposed in a discourse, by the mere 
 effect of passion or strong feeling, without any direct connection with 
 what goes before, or with what follows. Some such sentences become 
 popular and common, they constitute interjectional phrases, expletive 
 parts of the daily conversation of particular sects, parties, or classes of 
 men ; they become habitual ; and then again they are abbreviated, 
 contracted, corrupted ; and so remain in language as words, sometimes 
 with little more articulation or distinct meaning than those other 
 sounds which are ascribed to the effect of mere natural impulse. 
 Here then is a wide field for interjectional forms in speech, compre- 
 hending the almost involuntary exclamation, the ivord more or less 
 significant, and the phrase more or less imperfect and obscure. 
 
 419. Hence, too, the grounds of that relation, to which I have Relation to 
 before adverted, between the interjection, the imperative mood, and c a s° d and 
 
 t2 
 

 
 276 OF INTERJECTIONS. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 the vocative case, may be easily perceived. The interjection, indeed, 
 as such, neither asserts, like the verb, nor names a conception, like the 
 noun. It manifests the existence of a feeling to the sympathies of 
 mankind, but it does not declare that existence as a fact addressed to 
 their judgment. In this respect, therefore, it differs generally from the 
 verb. Again, it shows actual feeling : it does not merely name the 
 conception of a feeling, but gives to that conception a vital energy as 
 it were ; it shows the speaker to be affected by its impulse, and is 
 thus distinguished from a noun. The limits between an interjection 
 and a noun or verb, however, are not always very easy to be observed 
 in practice. The imperative mood, and the interrogative form of a verb 
 have so much of animation about them, that they easily pass into mere 
 interjections, and the same may be said" of the vocative case of nouns. 
 In practice, I should be inclined to say, that so long as a noun or verb 
 (distinguishable as such) enters into construction with other parts of 
 a sentence, or admits of grammatical inflection, according to its par- 
 ticular application, it is to be considered as not having assumed the 
 character of a mere interjection ; whilst, on the other hand, the simply 
 articulated exclamation, or the noun or verb which has lost somewhat 
 of its original form and signification, is entitled, so. long as it shows 
 forth an actual feeling, to be called an interjection. Wilkins's scheme, 
 short as it is, helps to illustrate the connection between these parts of 
 speech. Wo ! which he properly ranks among interjections, is also 
 used as the vocative case of a noun. — Hush ! (like hark ! lo ! oyez ! 
 &c.) is also the imperative mood of a verb. The interrogative is in 
 some degree implied by hem ! or hm ! which he considers as interjec- 
 tions of doubt. It is more distinctly marked in French by the word 
 puis, as explained in the Bictionnaire de VAcademie. " On dit, par 
 ellipse, et par interrogation, et puis ! pour dire, eh bien ! qu'en 
 arrivera-t-il ? que s'ensuivra-t-il ? que fera-t-on apres ? Ou bien, qu'en 
 arriva-t-il ? que s'ensuivit-il ?" 
 Coupled with 420. Though the interjection itself does not assert, it may be coupled 
 an assertion. w ^ an asser ti n, as one subordinate sentence is coupled with another 
 in a larger sentence. This I have already exemplified in the passages 
 — " O ! that I had wings like a dove !" — " Oh ! that this too solid 
 flesh would melt !" — in both which, the verbs (had, and would melt) 
 are put in the subjunctive mood, as dependent on the interjection O ! 
 — just as they would have been had the place of ! been supplied by 
 a verb, such as, " I wish," " I desire," or the like. In a union of this 
 kind the interjection precedes the sentence with which it is connected ; 
 for it has been observed by Vossius, that though the name interjection 
 is given on account of its being thrown in between the parts of a sen- 
 tence, yet this is not essential to the character of an interjection. It is 
 so named, not because it is always, but because it is generally so 
 placed. " Interjectiones dicta? sunt quia ssepe interserantur orationi, 
 non quod id perpetuum sit." — " Interjectio non semper interjicitur ; 
 quia ab ea quoque recte auspicamur."— " Nee tamen de ovaia ejus 
 
CHAP. XIV.] OF INTERJECTIONS. 277 
 
 est, ut inteijiciatur ; cum per se compleat sententiam, nee raro ab ea, 
 incipiat oratio." 
 
 421. The learned Wallis was in error, when he said there were interjections 
 but few interjections in the English language. True it is, that with 
 various contexts and accompaniments, the same interjection may express 
 
 very different emotions. We find Wilkins describing oh ! as an 
 expression of sorrow, as an exclamation preceding discourse, and as 
 bespeaking attention in discourse. These variations depend not on 
 the articulation, but on the intonation ; that is, not on the letters 
 which go to form the word, but on the elevation or depression of voice 
 in pronouncing it : but this is not peculiar to the interjection oh ! or to 
 the " incondite" interjections generally ; for the same may be observed 
 of any nouns or verbs used interjectionally. Thus we say, impatiently, 
 well ! and what of that ?" — or, with patient acquiescence, " well ! 
 never mind : it can't be helped." So there is great difference between 
 the affected gravity of Falstaff 's imprecation, plague ! and the same 
 imprecation seriously uttered against Apemantus : — 
 
 Falst. A plague of sighing and grief ! It blows a man up, like 
 a bladder. First Fart Henry IV. 
 
 Caph. Stay, stay, here comes the fool, with Apemantus. 
 
 Serv. Hang him ! He'll abuse us. 
 
 Isid. A plague upon him ! Dog ! " Timon. 
 
 422. Thus have I shown the propriety of ranking the interjection as 
 a separate part of speech, not " brutish and inarticulate," but em- 
 ployed by all mankind in all ages to express feelings, from the most 
 slight and evanescent to the deepest and most overpowering. I have 
 proposed a definition of this part of speech, and in developing it have 
 proved that it shows forth and expresses feelings, without asserting 
 their existence. I have given a short view of those nice shades and 
 gradations, by which our various feelings pass into distinct conceptions 
 and assertions, and of a corresponding gradation in the modes of their 
 expression, from incondite sounds, consonantal or vocal, to words either 
 growing out of those sounds, or adopted from mere fragments of 
 sentences, and finally to interjectional phrases, approximating in part, 
 or whole, to sentences purely enunciative ; whence we may easily 
 comprehend how the interjection rises to a noun, a verb, or a phrase, 
 and the phrase, verb, or noun sinks into an interjection. And with this 
 discussion I conclude the survey of words, as distributed into those, 
 which are named by grammarians, from their respective icses in the 
 communication of thought and feeling, the Parts of Speech. 
 
( 278 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 OF PAETICLES. 
 
 Parts of 
 words. 
 
 Why called 
 Particles. 
 
 How far 
 
 significant. 
 
 423. Having treated of sentences and words, it remains to be seen 
 whether the grammatical analysis cannot be carried still further, by 
 examining the constituent parts of words. It has been stated above, 
 that words, as to their sound, may, for the most part, be divided into 
 syllables, and syllables into articulations ; but these divisions having 
 no necessary relation to their signification are not here to be considered. 
 The question is, whether, and to what extent, words, taken as sig- 
 nificant integers, may not, in certain instances, admit of fractions (so 
 to speak) which go to make up those integers, and are also themselves 
 significant ? and this question is to be resolved, as I shall presently 
 show, in the affirmative. 
 
 424. The science of grammar, as hitherto cultivated, has, like most 
 other sciences, obtained as yet but an imperfect nomenclature. We 
 have seen that even the appellations " noun" and " verb," which are 
 on all hands admitted to be applicable to the most necessary parts of 
 speech, are differently understood by grammarians of note. It is not 
 surprising, therefore, that the term Particle should be misapplied, as 
 I think it is, when intended to signify those words which are at the 
 same time recognized as accessorial parts of speech. To say, " there 
 are eight parts of speech, but four of them are particles" is much like 
 saying, there are eight planets, but four of them are satellites, or eight 
 commissioned officers, but four of them are non-commissioned. The 
 word particle, according to all analogies of derivation, ought to mean 
 something less than the word part, a subdivision of a division, a part 
 of a part : and as words have been called parts of speech, particles 
 should be deemed parts of words, in which sense, with reference to 
 signification, I shall here use the term particle. 
 
 425. When I speak of a divisible word as an integer, in point of 
 signification, I speak of it with reference to its possible effect in the 
 construction of a sentence ; but when I speak of a portion of that word 
 as a particle, I allude to its effect in modifying the signification or 
 character of the integral word in language generally ; and some such 
 effect it must necessarily have, whether or not it has any known 
 signification when used separately. Thus each of the sentences, 
 " Johnson was learned," " Friendship is delightful," contains, as a 
 sentence, three, and only three significant integers, viz., a subject, a 
 copula, and a predicate, each of which integers is a word ; but if we 
 take any one of the four divisible words in these sentences, and inquire 
 into its signification in the English language generally, we shall find 
 that this depends on the way in which its primary portion is modified 
 
CHAP. XV.] OF PARTICLES. 279 
 
 by the other portion. In " Johnson," for instance, the primary- 
 portion John is modified by son : each portion has a known significa- 
 tion, and the union of both produces a third signification relating to 
 the two former. Again, in the word friendship there are two portions, 
 friend and ship, and the relation of the word friend to friendship is 
 very obvious ; but the relation of ship to friendship is not equally so at 
 first sight, though it may be discovered by study and reflection, as 
 will hereafter be shown. The word learned may, in like manner, be 
 divided into two portions, learn and ed, of which the former has a 
 clear meaning of its own ; but the latter, if it ever had a distinct and 
 separate meaning, has long since lost it, and serves only to mark that 
 learned is a participle of the verb to learn. The word delightful may 
 be divided into delight and ful, both which are intelligible enough in 
 English, or into de, light, and ful, of which the two former cannot be 
 separately understood without reference to the Latin. The words 
 Johnson, delightful, friendship, and learned, therefore, are in effect com- 
 pounds, each consisting of a primary part, which is modified by a 
 secondary part. John is modified by son, friend by ship, learn by ed, 
 and delight by ful. The primary parts in such compounds are words, 
 that is, when used separately, they have a plain and distinct significa- 
 tion of their own. The secondary parts may or may not have such 
 separate signification in present usage ; and their signification, if any, 
 may be more or less obvious. These secondary parts I call particles, 
 when so used in composition. Thus, I say that, in the word Johnson, 
 son is a particle ; in the word friendship, ship is a particle ; in the 
 word delightful, ful is a particle ; and in the word learned, ed is a 
 particle. 
 
 426. Particles modify words in three different ways, and with Three kinds, 
 three different effects : — 
 
 i. In the ordinary compounds, such as Johnson, overtake, forewarn, 
 erewhile, elsewhere, there is no alteration of the principal word, either 
 by changing the grammatical class to which it belongs, or by varying 
 the grammatical construction of the sentence in which it is used. 
 
 ii. In such compounds as friendship, bisyhed, avette, masterless, 
 blaunchard, sweetly, &c, the grammatical class of the word is more 
 or less altered; thus, from the personal substantive, friend, we form 
 the ideal substantive, friendship ; from the Latin appellative apis, was 
 formed the French diminutive avette; from the common adjective 
 blanche, was formed the diminutive adjective blaunchard ; from the 
 adjective busy, was formed the old English substantive bisyhed; from 
 the substantive master, we form the adjective masterless ; from the 
 adjective sweet, we form the adverb sweetly, and so forth. 
 
 hi. In such compounds as growen, beon, makede, walked, monethes, 
 children, &c, the principal word is varied in its construction by the 
 particles en, on, ede, ed, es, &c. ; and thus are formed those inflections 
 which grammarians call declensions and conjugations. Of each of 
 these kinds I shall give one or more examples. 
 
280 OF PARTICLES. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 ciaseand. 427. The class and construction of the word John remain unaltered 
 
 unaltered. 011 in Johnson, which was manifestly in its origin nothing more than 
 Johns son. Thus in all languages have been formed patronymics, the 
 most ancient of all family names. The Greeks did this in several 
 instances, whence such names as JEacides, Pelides, Atrides, &c. ; but 
 the Romans adopted it generally at a very early period of their history. 
 " Kemarquons sur les noms propres des families Romaines," (says 
 M. de Brasses), " qu'il n'y en a pas un sent chez eux, qui ne soit 
 termine en ius, desinence fort semblable a 1' viog des Grecs, c'est-a-dire 
 filius — par ou on pourrait conjecturer que les noms des families, da 
 moins ceux des anciennes maisons, seraient du genre patronimique." 
 Thus Caecilius was Cceculce viog, Julius, Juli viog, AHmilius, iEmili 
 viog, &c. Mr. Tooke says, " I think it not unworthy of remark that, 
 whilst the old patronymical termination of our northern ancestors was 
 son, the Sclavonic and Russian patronymic was of. Thus whom the 
 English and Swedes named Peterson, the Russians called Peterhof. 
 And as a polite and foreign affectation afterwards induced some of our 
 ancestors to assume Fitz (i. e. fils or filius) instead of son, so the 
 Russian affectation, in more modern times, changed of to vitch (i. e. 
 fitz, fils, or filius), and Peterhof became Petrovitch, or Petrowitz." 
 The Irish patronymic 0' may possibly be of the same origin as the 
 Russian of. The Welsh 'P is well known to be op, an abbreviation 
 of mab, a son, as Price for Ap Rhys, Powell for Ap Hoel, &c. The 
 Scottish Highlanders use the cognate word mac, a son, for their 
 patronymical prefix, as in Mac Donald (i. e. the son of Donald), 
 Mac Kenzie (i. e. the son of Kenneth), &c. ; while the Lowland Scotch 
 used still a different mode of expressing the same thing, by prefixing 
 to the son's name the genitive case of the father's, as Watt's Robin, 
 for Robert the son of Walter ; Sim's Will, for William the son of 
 Simon, whence arose such family names as Watts, Sims, and the like : 
 and so much for the particles son, ius, fitz, of, vich, mac, 0\ 'P, 
 and '& The proper name, Johnson, is no less obviously a compound 
 than watchman, spearman, boat-hook, and thousands of similar words in 
 common use. There are also many that have fallen into disuse, 
 though still perfectly intelligible ; ex. gr. nonemete, a meal formerly 
 eaten by artificers at noon, but which seems to be distinguished from 
 dinner : — 
 
 Divers artificers and laborers reteyned to werke and serve, waste moch part of 
 the day, and deserve not their wagis, summe tyme in late commyng unto their 
 "\verke, erly departing therfro, longe sitting at ther brekfast, at ther dyner, and 
 nonemete, and long tyme of sleping at after none. 
 
 Stat. 2 Hen. VII. c. xxii. M.S. 
 
 And as we had the word nonemete, i. e. noonmeat, so we have the 
 words noontide, noonday, midday, midnight, forenoon, afternoon, &c, 
 all nouns compounded on similar principles ; for as noon modifies 
 meat, so mid modifies night, and fore modifies noon : and thus noon, 
 mid, and fore, are equally to be considered in these three instances 
 
CHAP. XV.] OF PARTICLES. 281 
 
 respectively as particles. So, in the compound verb overtake, over is 
 a particle modifying take ; and in the compound noun overseer, over is 
 a particle modifying seer ; and this particle, over, is sometimes cor- 
 rupted into or, as in the word orlop, which is a platform of planks laid 
 over the beams in the hold of a ship-of-war, so named from the Dutch 
 overloopen, to run over, and anciently written in English overlopps : — 
 
 Somuche as they shall put greater nomber of people in the cas- 
 telles and ouerlopps of their shypps they shalbe the more oppressed. 
 Xicolls's Thucydides, fol. 191, a. 
 
 In Danish also this same preposition over, written ober, is used as a 
 particle in compound nouns, as oberdommer, the chief justice. 
 
 428. The grammatical class to which the woidfriend belongs is Class altered, 
 that of a general appellative, and it expresses a person possessing a 
 
 certain moral quality ; but the grammatical class to which the word 
 friendship belongs is that of an universal, and expresses the ideal con- 
 ception of that quality. In compounding the primary word friend, 
 then, with the particle ship, an alteration of the grammatical class is 
 effected. In some such compounds the particle retains a signification 
 analogous to that which it has when used separately ; but in this 
 particular instance, the particle ship signifies something very different 
 from the ordinary English substantive ship. To understand its modi- 
 fying power, therefore, we must have recourse to those cognate 
 languages in which a particle of similar origin occurs. The Germans 
 use the termination schaft, the Dutch schap, and the Swedes shop : 
 and these are manifestly from the Gothic skapan, Anglo-Saxon scapan, 
 or scyppan, Frankish and Alamannic scaffen, Dutch scheppen, Icelandic 
 skapa and skipa, Danish skaher, and old English to shup, i. e. to shape, 
 make, or do : — 
 
 The shuppare that huern shupte 
 
 To shome he huem shadde. Satire on Horsemen. 
 
 Wymmen were the beste thing 
 That shup our here heuene kyng. 
 
 MS. Earl. 2253, fol. 71, b. 
 
 Friendship, therefore, is the action, the work, of a friend : Chaucer 
 uses gladshipe : — 
 
 That gladshipe he hath al forsake. 
 
 In Danish we find selkskab, a fellowship ; in Anglo-Saxon ealdorscipe, 
 cynescipe, sib-scipe, &c. In German herrschaft, eigenschaft, gesell- 
 schaft, &c. &c. 
 
 The particle scape, in landscape, is the same as ship; for we find in 
 Anglo-Sixon landscipe, in Dutch landschup, and in German land- 
 schafft. 
 
 Many other particles altering the class of words are to be found in 
 our own and other languages, which will be more appropriately 
 noticed in a future part of this work. 
 
 429. The third mode in which particles modify words is, by alter- Construction 
 ing their effect in the construction of a sentence. This use of particles, altered - 
 
282 OF PARTICLES. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 which seems to have been little thought of, and scarcely suspected till 
 of late years, has recently opened an immense field for the study of 
 that important branch of ethnography, the connection of languages. 
 Mr. Tooke, in the second volume of his Diversions of Purley, says, 
 " All those common terminations, in any language, of which all 
 nouns or verbs in that language equally partake, under the notion of 
 declension or conjugation, are themselves separate words with distinct 
 meanings." On the strength of this assertion, credit has been given 
 to him as the discoverer of a great and incontrovertible principle in 
 the science of language ; but his real and only merit (if merit it be) 
 was in boldly stating as a general truth what more cautious gram- 
 marians had shown, with great probability, to be true in a few par- 
 ticular instances. As in his first volume he had built his whole 
 theory of conjunctions on Skinner's derivation of the conjunction if 
 from the imperative gif, so in his second volume, published several 
 years after, he, in the above brief and oracular manner, asserted all 
 terminations not merely to have originally teen, but still to be, separate 
 words ; because Dr. Gregory Sharpe and others had suggested, " that 
 the personal pronouns are contained in the Greek and Latin termina- 
 tions of their verbs." Mr. Tooke adds, " These terms are all explicable, 
 and ought to be explained ;" but he made not the slightest attempt 
 himself to prove in detail what he had asserted as universally true. 
 The productions of the illustrious German philologists, and especially 
 of Grimm, Pott, and Bopp, show the result of long years of labour, 
 in comparing not merely the terminations, but the particles in general, 
 whether prefixed, subjoined, or inserted, of whole families of languages, 
 . especially those called Indo-European. We now clearly perceive the 
 operation of one and the same great principle in languages so widely 
 distant from each other in time and place, as the Zend, the Sanscrit, 
 the Mseso-Gothic, the Sclavonian, the Frankish, German, Anglo- 
 Saxon, and English. We find in these and other dialects, not only 
 that the personal pronouns supply particles by which nouns are 
 declined and verbs conjugated, but that certain particles distinguish 
 pronouns personal, relative, and demonstrative ; that they ' convert 
 adjectives into adverbs ; give to verbs a negative, intensitive, in- 
 ceptive, or frequentative character ; and, in short, enable the same 
 radical word to pass through all the modifications of every separate 
 part of speech. And, moreover, we perceive that the same particle, 
 varied in articulation according to definite laws, performs the same 
 function in many different languages, showing a connection between 
 nations, of which, in many instances, history affords no other trace, 
 induction. 430. The method by which Mr. Tooke arrived at his supposed 
 
 discoveries, was certainly not *' the Baconian Induction ;" for it 
 consisted in that very " leap or flight from particulars to the remote 
 and most general axioms,"* which Bacon so much and so often repro- 
 
 * Ncque permittendum est, ut Intellectus a particularibus ad axiomata remota 
 et quasi generalissima saliat et volet. Org. Nov. aph. 1 04. 
 
CHAP. XV.] OF PARTICLES. 283 
 
 bates, as"a rash and premature anticipation,"* and in that " induction 
 by simple enumeration," which he describes as " a puerile thing leading 
 to precarious conclusions, and exposed to hazard from contradictory 
 proofs :" j whilst, on the other hand, the zealous and persevering phi- 
 lologists above mentioned, and their fellow-labourers of perhaps equal 
 ability, have pursued that which Bacon calls " the true way," J and 
 " from which we may augur well for science ;" viz., " when by a just 
 scale, and by continuous, uninterrupted, and unbroken degrees, we 
 ascend from particulars to the minor axioms, thence to the intermediate, 
 each successively superior to that which it precedes, and so at last to 
 the most general."§ They have shown, that what is done in some 
 languages by particles, is done in other languages by separate words : 
 and as it is abundantly clear that all separate words may have been 
 wholly or partially employed to signify either conceptions or emotions, 
 it is reasonable to infer that the particles which stand in their place 
 are significant also. Accordingly, these eminent men have explained 
 the signification of almost all the particles employed in the above- 
 mentioned languages to modify nouns substantive or adjective, parti- 
 ciples, pronouns, verbs, or prepositions ; and the result may be illus- 
 trated by the analysis of a trivial sentence : ex. gr. "The shepherdess 
 says that she plainly saw those soldiers mounted on able and handsome 
 horses, driving the farmer's two largest oxen over the height." I will, 
 therefore, briefly notice the effect of the particles here employed, in 
 modifying the different parts of speech ; reserving a fuller examination 
 of them to a future period. 
 
 431. First, as to substantives — the particles er and ess, in " soldier," Modifying 
 " farmer," and " shepherdess," mark gender ; en, es, and s in " oxen," ' 
 " horses," and " soldiers " mark number ; and '5 in " farmer's," marks 
 case. In some languages, the gender of a noun substantive is shown 
 by a separate word ; in others, by a termination. The English mas- 
 culine termination er manifestly corresponds with the German personal 
 (or as Dr. Latham calls it demonstrative) pronoun, er, " he:" with the 
 Latin masculine termination or, and substantive vir, " man," and 
 various words and particles in other languages, as will be shown here- 
 after. The Latins expressed children of the two sexes by the words 
 puer and puella. Puer signifies what we mean by a man-child. We 
 have therefore reason to believe, that as man is a word significant of a 
 male of the human kind, so er when standing alone had a similar 
 
 * Anticipationes naturae — res temeraria et prematura. Org. Nov. aph. 26. 
 
 f Inductio quae procedit per emrmerationem simplicem, res puerilis est, et pre- 
 cario concludit, et periculo exponitur ab instantia contradictor^, lb. aph. 105. 
 
 I Altera (via) a sensu et particularisms excitat axiomata, ascendendo continenter, 
 et gradatim, ut ultimo loco perreniatur ad maxime generalia, quae Via vera est. 
 Aph. 19. 
 
 § De scientiis turn demum bene sperandum est, quando per scalam veram, et per 
 gradus continuos, et non intermissos, aut biulcos, a parti cularibus ascendetur ad 
 axiomata minora, et deinde ad media, alia aliis superiora, et postremd demum ad 
 generalissima. Aph. 104. 
 
284 OF PARTICLES. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 signification. PueUa signifies a girl ; if we call pu-er a he-child, we 
 may call pu-ella a she-child : and in fact, ilia is the Latin feminine pro- 
 noun she. In like manner our feminine particle ess, as in shepherdess, 
 agrees with the Latin termination ix, and the Greek ig, as 7rpo((yrJTLc, a 
 prophetess, and is found in the Italian pronoun essa, she. Our plural 
 termination en, which we retain in a few words only, is the ordinary 
 plural termination in German, as it was in old English. Its connection 
 with any existing noun, however, requires to be more fully inves- 
 tigated. On the other hand, our plural termination es, of which s, 
 (as in the above word soldiers) is a mere abbreviation, is found in the 
 Latin and French plural termination es, the old Scotch is, as in cryis 
 and dappis,* the Greek plural termination ea, as Ttrdveg, the Doric 
 plural pronoun a/ieg, " we," &c, and is perhaps connected with the 
 Latin pronoun singular, is. Our 's (as in the above word, farmer's) 
 is an abbreviation of the Anglo-Saxon genitive termination es, or is, as 
 Godes, " of God," skipis, " of a ship ;" which long prevailed in old 
 English and Scotch, and has been erroneously supposed to be a con- 
 traction of his. 
 
 Adjectives. 432. As to adjectives, the particle hie and some, in "able" and 
 " handsome," are connected with adjectival terminations in other lan- 
 guages ; the former being derived from the Latin Mis, as in amdbilis, 
 (which is doubtless connected with the pronouns ille and is), and the 
 latter with the German sam, as in langsam, the Frankish leidsame, 
 " loathsome," the Icelandic sam, as in samborgari, " fellow-citizen," and 
 with our own pronoun same. 
 
 Participles. 433. Our participle of present time is formed by the participle ing, 
 as in " driving," and that of past time by the particle ed, as in 
 " mounted." Ing is the Scottish and, as in glowand (glowing), and 
 the Frankish enti, as in scinenti (shining), both which seem to be con- 
 nected with the Latin ens, entis, as in the genitive placentis, and with 
 endi, as in the gerund placendi : and as ens is a participle of the verb 
 esse, "to be," ing has probably a similar origin. Of this termination 
 ing, however, it must be observed, that in English it does not exclu- 
 sively signify time present, much less is it confined to a time momen- 
 tarily present. We use the infinitive noun singing, as we do the 
 infinitive to sing ; for we may equally say " singing is a genteel accom- 
 plishment," or " to sing is a mark of a mind at ease." So, while the 
 act of building a house is going on, we say " this house is building," 
 more properly than "this house is being built" In like manner, we 
 say of the builder, " he has been a long time building this house." 
 And again, a participle with this termination often passes into an 
 adjective proper, as " this is a person of a pleasing address;" and the 
 same occurs in the Latin idiom — 
 
 Linquenda tellus, et domus, et placens 
 Uxor. 
 
 Horat. Car. 2, 14, 21. 
 
 * Christis Kirk, stanza 14. 
 
CHAP. XV.] OF PARTICLES. 285 
 
 Nor is this usage of a participle confined to the participle present ; for 
 we speak of " an aged man," as we do of an old man, without reference 
 to any particular time. And so does the poet — 
 
 nequeharum, quas colis, arborum 
 
 Te prater invisas cupressos 
 
 Ulla brevem dominum sequetur. 
 
 Horat. ut sup. 
 
 434. The participle which modifies the pronoun those in the sentence Pronouns, 
 above given, is simply a broad vowel exchanged for one of weaker 
 pronunciation. The singular this, becomes the plural those. This 
 
 sort of modification is common in all languages. It was carried much 
 further in the Anglo-Saxon pronouns, than it is in the modern English ; 
 for the pronoun answering to our this, was in the singular masculine 
 thes, thises, thisum, thisne, thise ; feminine, theos, thisse, thas ; neuter, 
 this, thises, thisum, thise, and in the plural thas, thissa, thissam. 
 
 435. The modifications of the verb by particles are in most Ian- Verbs, 
 guages of the Indo-European branch, except our own, very numerous. 
 
 A short specimen of them may here suffice : — 
 
 English. 
 
 Latin." 
 
 Greek. 
 
 Gothic. 
 
 Sanscrit. 
 
 Zend. 
 
 I stand 
 
 sto 
 
 ICTty/U 
 
 stam 
 
 t'istami 
 
 histami 
 
 Thou standest 
 
 stas 
 
 'iarrjg 
 
 stas 
 
 t'istasi 
 
 histasi 
 
 He standeth 
 
 stat 
 
 'iorari 
 
 stat 
 
 t'istati 
 
 histati 
 
 We stand 
 
 stamus 
 
 'iarafiEV 
 
 stames 
 
 t'istamas 
 
 
 Ye stand 
 
 statis 
 
 'iarrare 
 
 stat 
 
 t'istata 
 
 histatha 
 
 They stand 
 
 stant 
 
 'laravTi 
 
 stant 
 
 t'istanti 
 
 histenti 
 
 It is impossible, in many of these words, not to recognise the pronouns 
 me, av, it, rifj.eic, &c. In all the moods and tenses, the pronouns have 
 been most carefully, and in a great measure successfully traced, in 
 Bopp's Comparative Grammar. In many instances, the modification 
 is by a mere change of letter, as was observed above of the pronoun ; 
 and this seems to be natural to mankind, because we find it in different 
 languages, and in very various ways, as rvirrio, tvttio, capio, cepi — sing, 
 sang — man, men, &c, and in the above sentence, " saw," the past tense 
 of see. The word " says," in the same sentence, differs only from say 
 by the addition of a consonant ; but this is in reality a modern abbre- 
 viation of the word sayeth. M. de Brosses, after following the radical 
 sound cap through all its developments in the verb capio, concludes 
 with a just observation : — " Toute cette composition est l'ouvrage non 
 d'une combinaison reflechie, ni d'une philosophic raisonnee mais d'une 
 metaphysique d'instinct." Now, instinct could never have led men to 
 form a complicated and beautiful system out of sounds altogether un- 
 meaning ; but it might easily lead to the gradual combination of known 
 elements, until they formed at length the complete structure of a 
 language. 
 
 436. Of the adverbial termination ly, as in the above word Adverbs, &c. 
 "plainly," I have already observed that it is the adjective "like" 
 
Anomalies. 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 286 OF PARTICLES. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 abbreviated, and agrees with the Gothic leik, and many other Teutonic 
 words signifying a body. In the preposition over, the particle er again 
 appears with a different power ; but in all probability derived, as in the 
 former instances, from a pronoun. The same may be said of the ter- 
 minations est in " largest," and ht in height, the former serving to mark 
 the superlative degree, and the other the idea of high applied by a 
 natural transition of meaning to a high land. 
 
 437. There are numerous causes of anomaly in language, which 
 render it more particularly difficult to systematise and explain the 
 minor portions of speech, such as the prepositions, auxiliary verbs, and 
 particles. One of these causes is a mistaken notion of analogies 
 between particular words, where no such analogy exists. Thus our 
 word further, which was the comparative of forth, has been supposed 
 by many persons to be the comparative of far, and has therefore been 
 erroneously written farther. A still more striking instance is that of 
 the word coud, which we always pronounce properly, but spell could, 
 inserting the I, without any reason whatever, but that there is an I in 
 would and should. The two latter words are from the Anglo-Saxon 
 wille and sceal, the former is from the Anglo-Saxon cwethan ; and was 
 always written in old English couthe, cowthe, or coude ; — 
 
 That though he had me bete on every bone, 
 
 He couthe winne agen my love anone. Chaucer. 
 
 He thowght to taste if he cowthe, 
 
 And on he put in his mowth. Sir Cleges. 
 
 Sir, quod this knyght myld of speche, 
 
 Wold God I cowthe your sonne teche ! Lyfe of Ipomydon. 
 
 Ac he no couthe neuer mo 
 
 Chese the better of hem to. Amis and Amiloun. 
 
 Whiche was right displesant to the kyng, but he coude nat amende it. 
 
 ~ Froissart, fol. 43. 
 
 Another and a more effective cause of anomaly is the love of 
 euphony, or easy pronunciation, which leads the ignorant especially to 
 corrupt words by abbreviations and changes, as Godild ! for God yelde, 
 i. e., reward him. Gossip for god-sib, &c. 
 
 438. Allowing for the obscurities which these and other causes 
 spread over the minor portions of speech, it may fairly be said, that 
 in regard to particles, as well as to words, the great principle of 
 transition, by which significant sounds pass from one class and 
 description of signs into another, has been here established. The noun 
 or verb becoming a particle, and the particle coalescing with another 
 verb or noun, serve to modify their signification, and determine their 
 grammatical use. And finally, we may conclude, that language is 
 throughout a combination of significant sounds, fitted, to express 
 thoughts and emotions, as they exist interchangeably in the human 
 mind. 
 
( 287 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 OF THE MECHANISM OF SPEECH. 
 
 439. An observation of the late M. Frederick Cuvier, on the actions Subject of 
 of animals generally, is in an especial manner applicable to the exercise 
 of the faculty of speech : — " The actions of animals," says he, " are 
 composed of physical acts and intellectual acts, which imply the ex- 
 istence of corresponding faculties. Now since the physical faculties 
 are essentially passive, and depend immediately on the intellectual, 
 and since the former would not manifest themselves to us unless the 
 latter communicated to them their activity, we may conclude that, in 
 order to study animal nature, we should begin with the active facul- 
 ties, and should endeavour, from a knowledge of these, to appreciate 
 the physical actions."* Such is the course of proceeding which I have 
 adopted. I have hitherto considered the science of language with 
 reference to the faculties of intellect and will, which direct mankind 
 in communicating to each other their thoughts and feelings : it remains 
 to be inquired what are the bodily organs or instruments with which 
 they are furnished by an all-wise Creator for the purpose of such com- 
 munication, and how these may be used. I intend not here to discuss 
 the effect of looks or gestures, for though they are often more expressive 
 than words, yet as the present treatise has hitherto been confined to 
 the consideration of spoken language, I shall now inquire only into 
 the forms and uses of the organs of speech. 
 
 440. As the subject of inquiry in this part is different from that Mode of 
 previously considered, so the mode of conducting that inquiry must be 
 different. I have not now to proceed by deduction from ideas (that 
 is, universal conceptions) to general conceptions, and so to particulars; 
 but I must now proceed by induction from particulars to the less 
 general, and so to the more general, in the manner commonly called 
 Baconian, to which I before alluded. The reader, therefore, is not to 
 expect that he will find in the following pages any conclusions so abso- 
 lutely certain as those which constitute spiritual or intellectual truths ; 
 such, for instance, as the spiritual truth resulting from the beautiful 
 and striking parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, or as the intel- 
 lectual truth resulting from the 47th proposition of the first book of 
 Euclid. These, when once embraced by an individual mind, can 
 neither be obliterated nor altered : they admit of no confusion or 
 doubt ; they impress on the human mind the same conviction now 
 that they did when the one fell from the lips of Christ, and the other 
 was committed to writing by Euclid. It is otherwise with our con- 
 ceptions of bodily existence ; they are at best what Bacon calls 
 * Annales des Sciences Naturelles, 1839, vol. 12, p. 145. 
 
288 
 
 OF THE MECHANISM OF SPEECH. 
 
 [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 Inquiry 
 difficult. 
 
 Observation 
 limited. 
 
 " axiomata quasi generalissima,"* and all that they can promise is the 
 result of a cautious consideration of those particulars which our age, 
 country, and other circumstances, enable us to observe. What doc- 
 trines of Aratus or Hipparchus do the astronomers of the present day 
 recognise as adequate explanations of the movements of the heavenly 
 bodies ? Strabo was the most eminent geographer of his time ; but 
 he did not so much as guess the existence of America, Australasia, or 
 Polynesia. What notion had Dioscorides of the generation of plants ; 
 or the acute and perspicacious Hippocrates of the different action of 
 the sensitive and motor nerves ? 
 
 441. Not only was a knowledge of the mechanism of speech almost 
 unknown to the ancients, but even in our own day its acquisition is 
 beset with difficulties. The particulars* from which its inductions are 
 to be drawn occupy a sphere of vast but uncertain extent. All nations 
 and tribes of men speak articulately, all are jj,epo7reg av6pu)7roi ; but 
 how far they are capable of uttering the same articulations it is not 
 yet within the compass of probable conjecture to determine. The 
 Hottentots and other African tribes are said by Lichtenstein and Salt 
 to produce certain smacking sounds in the mouth, which Europeans 
 cannot imitate ; and the Chinese are unable to pronounce our letters 
 5, g, d,j\ z, or r; but whether these facts result from a peculiarity in 
 the formation either of the vocal or auditory organs, or whether it be 
 the mere result of a habit acquired in early infancy, our present state 
 of knowledge does not enable us to ascertain. 
 
 442. The range of observations actually made on articulation has 
 been comparatively narrow. Various governments, ancient and modern, 
 have reckoned among their subjects tribes and nations speaking great 
 diversities of language : yet neither Egypt, Assyria, nor Rome, in the 
 height of their power ; nor Spain, when she ruled over numerous 
 American tribes ; nor Russia, with her long list of Sclavonian, Tartar, 
 and Finnish provinces ; nor even England, on whose colonial empire 
 the sun never sets, has attempted to ascertain the diversities of articu- 
 lation which have been or could be practised within the limits of their 
 respective dominions. In 1815 a singular opportunity presented itself 
 for comparing the articulate sounds used in all parts of Europe, and in 
 a large portion of Asia ; for then were assembled in Paris, Cossacks of 
 the Wolga and the Don, Russians and Poles, the Scandinavian Swedes 
 and Danes, Celts of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Brittany, Teutons 
 of Northern and Southern Germany, Bohemians and Hungarians, 
 Basques, Catalonians, Castilians and Lusitanians, Greeks from Corfu, 
 Maltese speaking a dialect of Arabic, Jews retaining their ancient 
 Hebrew, Italians, French, and English: — 
 
 Such forces met not, nor so wide a camp, 
 When Agrican with all his northern pow'rs 
 Besieged Albracia, as romances tell, 
 The city of Galaphron 
 
 Nov. Org. L. 1, aph. 104. 
 
CHAP. XVI.] OF THE MECHANISM OF SPEECH, 289 
 
 Never before could so many different articulations be compared in 
 sound, and traced to the operation of the organs by which they were 
 respectively produced ; and that in the centre of Europe, by the 
 greatest physiologists then existing. But the opportunity was lost, 
 and may never again occur in the history of the world ! 
 
 443. Attempts have no doubt been frequently made to reduce the Framersoi 
 knowledge which men possessed on this subject to system, but a p a e ' 
 hitherto with very partial success. At some period of unknown 
 antiquity alphabetic writing was invented, and it might be sup- 
 posed that its first inventors had carefully studied the organic, 
 powers of human utterance ; but their ignorance on this subject is 
 demonstrable. Not only was no alphabet ever invented which ex- 
 pressed all the powers of articulation common to mankind in general ; 
 
 but there never yet teas a perfect alphabet of any language. As to our 
 own alphabetic system, it is the very worst, in practical application, 
 that ever existed. What can be more absurd than to allot to the 
 combination of the four letters, o, u, g, h, the different sounds which 
 we give it in through, dough, plough, rough, and cough, in no one of 
 which are the proper powers of the single letters retained? 
 
 444. If we appeal to the authority of philologists, we obtain but Philologists, 
 slight and indistinct information. " This subject," says Bishop Wil- 
 
 kins, " has been largely debated by several authors of great name and 
 reputation for learning. Besides those famous Emperors, Caius Cassar 
 and Octavius Augustus, who both writ on this subject, Varro like- 
 wise, and Apion, and Quintilian, and Priscian did bestow much 
 pains upon the same inquiry concerning the just number of letters. 
 And in later times it hath been treated of with great variety of opinions, 
 by Erasmus, both the Scaligers, Lipsius, Salmasius, Vossius, J. Mat- 
 thias, A. Metherchus, B. Malinchot. &c. : besides several of our own 
 countrymen, Sir T. Smith, Bulloker, Alexander Gill, and Dr. Wallis."* 
 Since Wilkins's time many learned men, both here and on the Conti- 
 nent, have pursued the like investigation ; but their disputes on the 
 Digamma, the Greek accents, the Masoretic points, and many other 
 such topics, sufficiently show the obscurity still involving all these 
 subjects. 
 
 445. Mechanists of great ingenuity have devoted the labour of Mechanists, 
 years to the production of machines which might imitate the sounds 
 
 of the human voice ; and so far as they have succeeded, they have 
 thrown considerable light on the operations of the natural organs of 
 speech. They have indeed been but little sustained in their exertions 
 either by pecuniary rewards, or by what perhaps they would have 
 estimated more highly, the well-deserved applause of their fellow- 
 men. A machine of this kind, which I much regret to have been 
 prevented by illness and other causes from seeing, but which (as I 
 have heard) evinced in its fabricator great talent, was not long ago 
 
 * Real Char. P. 3, c. 10. 
 2. U 
 
290 OF THE MECHANISM OF SPEECH, [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 exhibited in London, in the same building with a deception called 
 " the Mysterious Lady ;" but whilst one person attended the former 
 exhibition, at least twenty flocked to the latter. " Experiments 
 relative to the artificial production of the articulate sounds," says 
 Miiller, " have been made by Kratzenstein,f Kempelen,| and Mr. R. 
 Willis. § They have succeeded in imitating a great part of the 
 sounds used in speech ; but these speaking machines are always to a 
 certain extent imperfect, since every simple and independent sound 
 requires a special apparatus; and the combination of the different 
 kinds of apparatus with a common tube for the supply of air, so as to 
 form words, is exceedingly difficult." § " Kratzenstein," says Mr. 
 Mayo, ' ' found that by using little tubes of different shapes adapted 
 to an instrument that could produce sound, he could determine dif- 
 ferent vowel tones. De Kempelen produced vowel sounds by means 
 of an Indian rubber bell similarly adapted, the shape and size of which 
 he altered by the hand. But Mr. Willis's recent investigations are 
 the most satisfactory. He attached to a free reed a tube which was 
 capable, if immediately excited, of producing a determinate note. By 
 altering the length of this tube, the original sound was made to 
 assume the character of different vowels." |j " De Kempelen suc- 
 ceeded in constructing a speaking machine, which was capable of 
 uttering entire phrases, some of which were, Vous etes mon ami — Je 
 vous aime de tout mon coeur — Leqpoldus Secundus — Romanorum Impe- 
 rator, &c. Mr. Wheatstone has reconstructed this instrument from 
 De Kempelen's description : and I have heard it articulate the- words 
 mamma, papa, thumb, rum, summer, with great precision."^ 
 Organs of 446. Though a knowledge of the physical faculty of speech has 
 
 been in no small degree advanced by the labours of the ingenious 
 persons just mentioned, the most accurate information on this subject 
 can only be attained by examination of the vocal organs themselves. 
 Accordingly we find that such examination has been carefully made 
 as well by those who have treated of voice or sound as a branch of 
 natural philosophy, or with particular relation to music, as by those 
 who have considered it as part of the science of physiology. Among 
 the cultivators of natural philosophy who have directed their parti- 
 cular attention to the vocal organs may be reckoned Biot, Caignard de 
 la Tour, Miincke, Savart, &c. : among the writers on music Chladni, 
 and Gottfr. Weber; and among physiologists Haller, Cuvier, Ma- 
 jendie, Mayo, and Miiller. When we come to examine the writings 
 of these and other eminent persons who have treated of the vocal 
 organs, we shall perceive not only that they differ in arrangement, and 
 
 * Tentamen resolrendi problema ab Acad. Sci. Petropol. 1780. 
 
 f Mechanisrnus der menschlichen Sprache. Vienna, 1791. 
 
 \ Transact. Philos. Soc. Carnb. vol. 3. 
 
 § Miiller (J.), Elements of Physiol., transl. by W. Baly, 1837, p. 1053. 
 
 || Mayo, Outlines of Hum. Physiol., 4th ed. 1837, p. 376. 
 
 f Ibid. p. 378. 
 
 sound. 
 
CHAP. XVI.] OF THE MECHANISM OF SPEECH. 291 
 
 in the use of terms, but that there are many important points of fact, 
 on which they are by no means unanimous, and others which they 
 confess require further examination. 
 
 447. There is another difficulty which must not be overlooked. Organs or 
 Speech is spoken to be heard. The state of the organs of hearing is heanng * 
 therefore to be taken into account, as well as that of the organs of 
 speech. It is possible, though perhaps not very probable, that one 
 
 race of men may be so constituted by nature, as to distinguish by the 
 ear nice shades of articulate sound, which to others are imperceptible. 
 But whether it be owing to this or other causes, certain it is that the 
 inhabitants of whole districts fail to perceive differences of pronuncia- 
 tion, which those of other countries readily observe. In some parts of 
 England individuals confound the aspirated vowels with the un aspi- 
 rated. In some parts of Germany b is confounded with p, and v withy. 
 In Tuscany, the lower classes, and some of superior rank, pronounce ca 
 gutturally, as if written %a- These and many like defects of utterance 
 may perhaps be caused either by a malconformation of the ear, or 
 by an habitual inattention to certain minute distinctions of sound, 
 which inattention at length incapacitates the individual for exercising 
 in a correspondent manner his organs of speech. Even the ingenious, 
 and generally accurate Cour de Gebelin describes the English th as 
 identical in sound with the French z. This must certainly have arisen 
 in him from a natural or habitual inability to perceive a difference, 
 which to English ears, is most obvious. 
 
 448. In civilised life another circumstance occurs, which tends to Written 
 disturb our views of the mechanism of speech. All persons who ° 
 leam to read, otherwise than as the Chinese or Mantchous do, get the 
 habit of arranging their notions of articulation according to the alpha- 
 betic system of their own country. It is only on this ground that I 
 
 can account for so admirable a physiologist as Professor Muller reck- 
 oning the vowel articulations at only five. This was indeed the number 
 of the Latin alphabet ; in the English language six are recognised ; in 
 the Greek seven ; but no one of these divisions rests on any rational 
 foundation. Again, the English differ from all other nations hi 
 giving to the vowel character i a sound which is really that of a diph- 
 thong ; and they call y a vowel, though it is a mere repetition of t, 
 and therefore an entirely superfluous letter. This latter circumstance 
 may indeed be accounted for by events in the history of our written 
 language ; but it nevertheless causes great confusion in the science of 
 language ; and yet, perhaps, even well-educated persons in England 
 seldom think of the long ; sound of i or y, but as of that of a single 
 vowel. 
 
 449. Trusting that the reader will make due allowance for the Form of 
 obstacles which render it difficult to obtain an accurate knowledge of ° r ' 
 the mechanism of speech, I proceed shortly to state the result of such 
 investigations as I have been able to make on that subject. Speech is 
 
 the human voice rendered more or less articulate; and voice is a 
 
 u2 
 
292 
 
 OF THE MECHANISM OF SPEECH. 
 
 [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 Organs 
 arranged. 
 
 species of sound produced and modified by certain organs of the human 
 frame, usually designated the vocal organs. It will be necessary, 
 therefore, to consider the form and uses of the organs in question, the 
 general laws of sound in relation to them, and those modifications of 
 the voice which we call articulations. In describing the organs, I 
 pretend not to any practical knowledge of anatomy ; but 1 have col- 
 lected the little information which I possess on that subject from 
 a careful perusal of the accounts given by the authors above men- 
 tioned, and especially by Majendie, Mayo, and Muller, assisted, as I 
 have most kindly been, by the suggestions of my old and dearly- 
 valued friend Sir Benjamin Brodie, of whose opinion on a similar 
 subject it has been recently and most truly said, that " from his 
 natural acuteness, his philosophical habits, and his vast experience, no 
 opinion can be more entitled to weight." * Among the numberless 
 instances in which our weak and imperfect intellect is enabled faintly 
 to trace the marks of infinite wisdom in the works of creation, we 
 cannot but be struck with the remark, that whilst contrivances of 
 wonderful art are shown in the formation of organs for the inspiration 
 and expiration of that air which is continually necessary to our vital 
 existence, and for the swallowing of that food which from time to 
 time is no less necessary for our bodily support, several of the very 
 organs which serve both these purposes, contribute also to the faculty 
 of speech, by which man becomes a social being, and is fitted to be an 
 heir of immortality. 
 
 450. The general arrangement of the principal organs may be 
 understood from the following view of their relative positions : — 
 
 Nose 1 
 
 Mouth, viz. : 
 Lips 
 Teeth 
 Tongue 
 Palate 
 Throat 
 
 Ph 
 
 Epiglottis 
 
 Glottis 
 
 Larynx 
 
 I 
 
 CO 
 
 Lungs. 
 
 Two portions. 451. It may be convenienient to distinguish these organs into two 
 portions ; the lower, from the lungs to the lower opening of the pha- 
 
 * Quart. Rev. No. 170, p. 371. 
 
CHAP. XVI.] OF THE MECHANISM OF SPEECH. 293 
 
 rynx, serve principally to produce those modifications of the voice 
 which are independent of articulation, such as time, loudness, and 
 what has been called the pitch of the voice, answering to the high and 
 low notes in music ; besides which there are some other variations, 
 distinguished partly by the French word timbre, and partly by the 
 English words, tone, accent, &c. The higher organs, including the 
 pharynx, with the nasal and oral passages, contribute to articulation. 
 I shall begin with the lower organs. The lungs receive, by drawing 
 in the breath, a quantity of air, which they return by expiration 
 through the trachea and larynx to the opening called the pharynx, and 
 thence, by the nose and mouth, to the atmosphere. The breath is 
 inspired and expired without sound, unless it be rendered audible by 
 causing certain fine ligaments at the upper opening of the larynx to 
 vibrate ; and then the human voice is compared by Muller to " a 
 musical reed instrument with a double membranous tongue." * 
 
 452. The larynx is bounded ~ Larynx, 
 
 at the upper part by the glottis, 
 which has a moveable cover 
 called the epiglottis. *' The 
 sound of the voice is generated 
 at the glottis, and neither above 
 nor below this point." f "By 
 far the most valuable account of 
 the mechanism of the human 
 larynx which has been pub- 
 lished," says Mayo, " is that 
 given by Mr. Willis." % From 
 his Essay the accompanying 
 figure has been taken, represent- 
 ing the cartilages and muscles of 
 
 the larynx (omitting the cornua and the epiglottis) as seen after 
 dissection, from above. The muscles are here designated by numbers, 
 the cartilages by letters, viz. — 
 
 1. The crico-thyroideus (at the rima of the glottis). 
 
 2. The thyreo-arytasnoideus. 
 
 3. The crico-arytaenoideus posticus. 
 
 4. The crico-aryta?noideus lateralis. 
 
 5. Half of the aryteenoideus transversus and of the obliquL 
 
 A. The thyreoid cartilage. 
 
 B. The cricoid, 
 
 C. The arytenoids. 
 
 F. The vocal or inferior laryngeal ligaments. 
 H. The ligaments which tie the arytenoids to the cricoid. 
 
 * Elem. Physiol, vol. i, p. 1023. 
 
 $ Cambridge Philos. Trans. 1832. 
 
 f Ibid. p. 1003. 
 
Tabular 
 view. 
 
 294 OF THE MECHANISM OP SPEECH. [CHAP. XVI, 
 
 453. Mr. Willis's tabular view of. the action of the muscles of the 
 larynx is as follows :-*- 
 
 'a f Crico-thvreoidei, stretch the vocal ligaments (1). } Govern the 
 
 g(j< Thyreo-arytaeroidei, relax the vocal ligaments, and put them > pitch of the 
 3 [ in vocalising position (2). I notes. 
 
 Sound. 
 
 When 
 
 perceptible. 
 
 Orico-arytasnoidei postici, open the glottis (3). 
 
 Crico-arytaenoidei laterales, compress the front ^ Govern the 
 
 part of the arytenoids (4). I Close the > aperture of the 
 
 Arytsenoidei transversales and obliqui, compress j glottis. glottis. 
 
 the back part of ditto (5). J 
 
 Mr. Mayo thinks, " that for vocalization, the ligaments may acquire 
 a definite tension, joined with contact for their whole length ; and 
 that to allow the air to pass without producing a laryngeal sound, the 
 same tension being at the same time maintained, the ligaments may 
 require to be drawn apart, and the rima glottidis to be opened at its 
 posterior part." * 
 
 454. The reed instrument (as Miiller calls it), which is formed by 
 this curious adaptation of parts, produces sound, according to those laws 
 of acoustic science which have been so fully and clearly explained in 
 Sir John Herschel's able work on that subject. In using the word 
 "sound," however, I must observe a difference between certain words 
 in other languages with which it is sometimes confounded. For 
 instance, the French word son has, according to Chladni, three dif- 
 ferent significations : it expresses — 
 
 i. All that we perceive by the sense of hearing, 
 ii. What we perceive by appreciable vibrations of the air. 
 iii. What we perceive by the recurrence of vibrations of a 
 definite quickness. 
 
 These three significations, says he, answer respectively to the three 
 German words schall, Mang, and ton.* The English word sound, 
 however, includes at most only the two first of these meanings. It is 
 derived from the Latin sonus, which is defined to be " quicquid auribus 
 percipi potest." Now this perception is occasioned, as Diomede 
 says, by a " corporalis collisio ;" 'and every such collision causes certain 
 vibrations of the air, distinguishable according to their duration, or to 
 their force (that is, loudness), or else to a certain proportion of the 
 sounds to each other, in a scale of which the relative portions are 
 called in English high or low, and in French grave or aigu. 
 
 455. Where this relation is not perceptible to the ear (though the 
 loudness and duration of the sounds may be so in a great degree), we 
 call the sound noise, answering to the French word bruit ; but where 
 the relation is perceptible, it may be best illustrated by the example 
 of an elastic string or chord, stretched between two points A and C, 
 
 * Outlines Hum. Physiol, p. 370. f Traite' d'Acoustique, p. 5. 
 
CHAP. XVI.] OF THE MECHANISM OF SPEECH. 295 
 
 B 
 
 thus : A C. Now if the chord A C be drawn at 
 
 D 
 its middle point to B, it will form an arc or curve line ABC; and if 
 then let loose, the motion which it has acquired will carry it to D, so 
 as to form an arc ADC, and thence it will be forced back again 
 toward B. Each of these motions is called a vibration, and every 
 vibration giving an impulse to the air produces a sound. The suc- 
 cessive vibrations become less and less, till the line rests in its first 
 position. The number of vibrations which occur in a given time 
 determines the pitch of the sound : and the frequency of the vibrations 
 depends on the length of the arc ; if short they are frequent, if long 
 they are few. When the arc is long, the sound is what we call low ; 
 when the arc is short, the sound is what we call high. It is obvious 
 that the length of the arc may be increased or diminished either by a 
 minute and imperceptible gradation in the nature of a slide, or else by 
 adding or deducting certain definite and proportional parts ; and that 
 the sounds caused by the vibration of those arcs will vary in like 
 manner. The former of these circumstances takes place in ordinary 
 speaking, the latter in singing and in music generally. For the sliding 
 elevations and depressions we have no strictly accurate name, but the 
 definite intervals we call, in music, notes. The late Mr. Steele, in an 
 ingenious essay on the measure and melody of speech, endeavoured to 
 reduce the spoken rise and fall of sounds to a sort of musical notation, 
 but with very partial success. 
 
 456, The power of the human ear in distinguishing sounds by the Power of dis- 
 vibrations has certain limits. " In the gravest (i. e. lowest) sounds tmsuis mg - 
 perceptible to the human ear, says Chladni, the sonorous body makes 
 at least thirty vibrations in a second ; and we are able to appreciate 
 sharp (i. e-. high) sounds in which the vibrations are from 8,000 to 
 12,000 in a second."* Musical notes, it is known, rise by octaves, 
 each of which is produced by double the vibrations of the preceding. 
 " The lowest note of the violoncello has 128 vibrations, the octave 
 next above it 256, the third 512," &c."j" The range of the voice 
 seldom exceeds two octaves and a half ; Dr. Bennati says his own 
 voice extended to three octaves ; so did Zelter's ; and Catalani's 
 reached to three and a half.J The action of the small muscles which 
 cause these vibrations, is clearly shown in Mr. Willis's tabular state- 
 ment above quoted ; and thus the quality of voice called its pitch, 
 has been fully explained. The time of a vocal sound is also susceptible 
 of measure ; and the general perception of measure, or, as it is some- 
 times called, of rhythm, is a source of great part of the pleasure of 
 poetry, and furnishes the rules of prosody, which are commonly 
 deemed a part of grammar. A long or short sound, too, in most 
 languages, serves to distinguish one part of speech from another, and 
 
 * Traite d'Acoustique, p. 6. f Ibid. p. 7. 
 
 X Miiller, p. 1031. 
 
296 
 
 OF THE MECHANISM OF SPEECH. 
 
 ICHAP. XVI. 
 
 one noun from another noun, or one verb from another verb ; and in 
 all these respects the quantity of a word (as grammarians call it) is 
 material to the understanding of language. Independently of these 
 latter considerations we may observe, that by the combined effect of 
 the pitch of a vocal sound, though wholly inarticulate, with its 
 duration and loudness, human feelings are expressed, in infancy, or in 
 a state of barbarism, or of great excitement. Under such circum- 
 stances, the sound forms what Mr. Majendie calls a cry, and considers 
 as common to man with brute animals. To connect feeling with 
 conception, recourse must.be had to the power of articulation. 
 
 Epiglottis. 457. I have stated that the glottis has a moveable cover called the 
 
 epiglottis. In the act of carrying food- from the mouth through the 
 pharynx into the oesophagus for digestion, the larynx is raised, and 
 the epiglottis brought down on it, so as to prevent the food from 
 passing into the glottis. If any extraneous matter which is large passes 
 into the glottis, there is danger of immediate suffocation ; if small, 
 it may pass into and lodge in some of the bronchial passages, causing 
 eventual inflammation of the lungs, and in course of time death. If a 
 person imprudently laugh, or attempt to speak, while he is swallowing, 
 or holding any loose substance in his mouth, the escape of air from 
 the lungs lifts up the epiglottis, and one or other of these pernicious 
 consequences may ensue. To a similar cause was owing the remark- 
 able accident of Mr. Brunei, which in a manner still more remarkable, 
 was relieved by the skill of Sir Benjamin Brodie. A half sovereign 
 had remained for some weeks in a part of Mr. Brunei's bronchial tube, 
 when Sir B. Brodie, causing him to be fastened on a board which 
 moved on its centre, reversed the position of his body ; and the coin, 
 by its own weight forcing open the glottis, passed into the mouth. 
 
 458. In uttering a vocal sound, the epiglottis being raised, the air 
 passes into the pharynx, which is a large cavity with an opening into 
 the mouth, and another into the nose, and both of these contribute to 
 render the sound articulate. The oral passage is the principal. 
 Through that, the air is capable of passing directly and in an undi- 
 verted stream, producing those sounds which the ancients called voccdes, 
 and we call vowels, or else interrupting the stream, so as to produce 
 what are called consonants. I shall consider these first in their simple, 
 and then in their combined effect. 
 
 Vowek. 459. In the production of vowel sounds, the cavity of the mouth is 
 
 capable of assuming different forms according as it is varied by the 
 action of the throat, palate, tongue, teeth, or lips ; and hence follows 
 a correspondent variety in the vocal sounds, the number of which 
 different writers estimate differently. It is true that, theoretically 
 speaking, there can be no precise rule for fixing the possible distinction 
 of vowels at a certain number, because the action of the organs may 
 be indefinitely varied, according to the natural constitution of every 
 human being, at every stage of his existence. All that can w T ell be 
 done in the present state of science, is to adopt such divisions of 
 
 How made 
 articulate. 
 
CHAP. XVI.] OF THE MECHANISM OF SPEECH. 297 
 
 vowel sound as are, or have been, in use among those nations whose 
 practice in this respect we are able to ascertain. In this view I have 
 found no statement more reasonable and practical than that of Bishop 
 Wilkins, who says, " There are, I conceive, eight simple different 
 species of vowels easily distinguishable whose powers are commonly 
 used. I cannot deny but that some other intermediate sounds might 
 be found, but they would, by reason of their proximity to those others, 
 prove of so difficult distinction as would render them useless."* The 
 eight distinctions of the learned bishop appear to be suitable to the 
 Greek and Latin languages, and the different branches of the Teutonic, 
 Scandinavian, and Celtic, with which I have any acquaintance ; how 
 far they may serve to express the vowel sounds of other nations, I 
 pretend not to say. The Bishop expresses them by the following 
 marks — y, a, a, e, i, o, w, u. I take them in this order, because the 
 operation of the different organs will thus be best seen, beginning 
 with the sound as it enters from the pharynx, and proceeding gradually 
 to the lips; and I shall explain them (as well as the consonants 
 hereinafter noticed) according to the Bishop's statement, corrected in 
 some important particulars by the suggestions of Sir B. Brodie. It is 
 to be observed that every one of these vowels may be long or short ; 
 that is, its pronunciation may occupy a greater or less portion of time, 
 but this does not depend on articulation. The oral cavity continues 
 to retain the same form during the whole utterance, and the time, as 
 has already been shown, is a circumstance depending on the action of 
 the lower organs. 
 
 i. y is a guttural sound, for which we have no mark in English, 
 but which is expressed in Welsh by this character. It is produced 
 immediately at the emission of air from the throat ; the teeth are a 
 little separated, the muscles of the tongue are relaxed, the tip of the 
 tongue is a little below, and the posterior part of the tongue is a little 
 above the level of the teeth ; the lips in this (as in all the vowels) are 
 of course open. The long sound is frequent in French, as in beurre, 
 meurtre ; it is less long in English, as in bird, burthen, and short, as in 
 but, nut. Being so very simple in its formation, many of our other 
 vowels, when short, degenerate into it ; and indeed this circumstance 
 may be almost considered as a characteristic of English pronunciation, 
 especially in rapid speaking, for in such a case the words honour, of, 
 father, sir, are pronounced as if they were written hom/r, yv, fatbz/r, 
 syr, &c. 
 
 ii. " A" (says Wilkins) " is the most apert amongst the Lingua- 
 palatal vowels. 'Tis expressed by this character, because being one of 
 the Greek letters it is more commonly known. It is framed by an 
 emission of the breath betwixt the tongue and the palate, the tongue 
 being put into a more concave posture, and removed further off from 
 the palate." Hence the oral aperture is larger than in the preceding 
 vowel y ; the teeth are separated to a greater distance, the tongue is 
 * Real Char. P. 3, c. 11. 
 
298 OF THE MECHANISM OF SPEECH. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 more depressed, and the surface of it is more flattened. The sound 
 Is long as in all, bawl ; or short, as in poll, folly. 
 
 iii. a. The teeth are separated to the same distance as in «, the 
 tongue is rendered broader, the tip of the tongue is immediately 
 behind the incisor teeth of the lower jaw ; but the rest of the tongue 
 is raised above the level of the grinding teeth, so that the space 
 between the tongue and the bony palate is narrower than in a. The 
 sound is long in the French male and English half; it is short in the 
 French mal and English hat. 
 
 iv. e. " This vowel" (says Wilkins) " is framed by an emission of 
 the breath between the tongue and the concave of the palate, the 
 upper superficies of the tongue being brought to some small degree of 
 convexity." Add, that the teeth are less separated than in a, the 
 tongue is still broader, and the whole is elevated so that it fills the 
 space between the teeth of the upper and lower jaw, leaving only a 
 small space between it and the bony palate. The oral aperture is 
 consequently smaller than in any of the former instances. The sound 
 is long in the French pretre, and English fate, and short in the French 
 trompette and English met. Many persons erroneously give the long- 
 sound of this vowel to the first letter in our alphabet, whereas that 
 letter has only such a sound when weakened by e after an intervening 
 consonant. 
 
 v. i. " The vowel" (says Wilkins) " is expressed by this character, 
 because this letter amongst many other nations is already used and 
 pronounced according to the sound which is here intended. It is 
 framed by an emission of the breath betwixt the tongue and the con- 
 cave of the palate, the upper superficies of the tongue being put into 
 a more convex posture, and thrust up near the palate." Consequently 
 the oral aperture is diminished to its least vocal extent, and the lips 
 and teeth are more nearly closed than in any other vowel. The sound 
 is long in the English bleed and French gite, and short in the English 
 bit, but seldom so short in any French word. 
 
 vi. o. This and the two following vowels receive their power prin- 
 cipally from the position of the lips. In o the tongue and teeth are in 
 the same state as in the pronunciation of « ; but the lips are contracted 
 into a circle, or nearly so. The sound is long in the English bone, and 
 French trbne ; it is short in the French noble and English nobility. 
 
 vii. w. " This" (says Wilkins) " is the second of the labial vowels 
 requiring a greater contraction of the lips." Their opening is, in fact, 
 rather elliptical than circular. The tip of the tongue is more elevated 
 and brought a little more forward than in the preceding vowel ; the 
 teeth are nearly at the same distance as in o and ot. The sound is 
 long in the English moon and French poule ; and short in the English 
 pull and French voulez. The character vo is adopted by me because 
 we have no English character for a sound so common in our own 
 and most other languages ; our letter u being properly a diphthong. 
 
 viii. u. This is what Wilkins calls " the u Gallicum or whistling u" 
 
CHAP. XVI.] OF THE MECHANISM OF SPEECH. 299 
 
 He says that it cannot be denied to be a distinct simple vowel, but 
 that it is of a laborious and difficult pronunciation to the English and 
 other nations amongst whom it is not used. The sound in French is 
 long in buse, and short in but. It is quite unknown in English, but 
 the difficulty of acquiring it seems to be exaggerated by Wilkins. 
 The lips must be brought into contact on each side, leaving only a 
 very small aperture in the centre, the tongue and teeth remaining as 
 in the preceding vowel w. 
 
 In pronouncing any of the vowels, the soft palate is elevated so as 
 to increase the posterior oral, and diminish the posterior nasal aper- 
 ture. The vowels therefore are always oral sounds ; but the nasal 
 sound may be added to any of them by depressing the soft palate, 
 and raising the root of the tongue either before or after the vowel itself 
 is uttered. 
 
 460. The consonants are properly to be considered as expressing Consonants, 
 not different vocal sounds, but merely modifications of vocal sound. 
 Several of the distinctions applied to them by recent writers of emi- 
 nence appear to me to rest on erroneous principles in this respect ; for 
 instance, that of the strepitus cequalis, and strepitus explosivus of 
 Amman, which is recognised as valid by Mtiller. The strepitus cequalis 
 or continuous sound, ascribed to h, m, n, ng, f, ch, gh, sh, s, r, and 
 1, is merely a continuance of the vowel sound with which these letters 
 happen to be connected; for instance, in " Rule Britannia " the con- 
 tinuous sound in rule is not that of R but of u. In " God save the 
 King," the continuous sound in save is not that of s but of a. Other 
 distinctions appear to me liable to other objections ; and upon the 
 whole I think the best arrangement of consonants is to take them in 
 the order of the organs by which they are formed, beginning, as I did 
 in the case of the vowels, with those which are formed nearest to the 
 pharynx, and uttered through the oral cavity. 
 
 In this point of view, the first which presents itself is H, which h 
 Miiller describes as M a continuous oral sound, with the whole oral canal 
 open." * It has been disputed indeed whether it should be called a 
 consonant, or a breathing; but as it really modifies all the vowels, I 
 think it belongs to the class of consonants. Muller's account of it, 
 however, is not satisfactory ; or at least it should be added that h 
 receives an impulse from the larynx. In the Italian language it 
 formerly prevailed much more than at present. In English it acts an 
 important part, though in some dialects it is often misapplied. 
 
 The next is %• *' Gh and its correspondent cA," says Wilkins, " are x 
 both of them framed by a vibration of the root or middle of the tongue 
 against the palate, the former being vocal and the other mute. They 
 are each of them of difficult pronunciation ; the first is now used by 
 the Irish, and was perhaps heretofore intended by the spelling of those 
 English words right, daughter, &c. Though this kind of sound be 
 now by disuse lost amongst us, the latter of them (ch) is now used 
 among the Welsh, and was perhaps heretofore intended by the Greek 
 * EealChar. P. 3, c. 12. 
 
300 OF THE MECHANISM OF SPEECH. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 letter ^." * The account given of it by Professor Miiller is more 
 diffuse. He says, the sound which this consonant (ch, the Greek ^) 
 has in the German language does not exist in the French, nor in the 
 English, but some of its modifications are met with in the Scotch and 
 Irish dialects. For its production the tongue is applied closely to the 
 palate, and the air is pressed through the small space left between 
 them. There are three modifications of the sound, according to the 
 part of the palate to which the tongue is applied : — 
 
 i. In the first modification, the forepart of the tongue is ap- 
 plied to the forepart of the palate, as in pronouncing the 
 German words lieblich and selig. 
 ii. In the second the dorsum of the tongue is approximated to 
 the middle of the palate : this sound is very different 
 from the preceding, it is heard in the German words 
 Tag, suchen, ach, &c. 
 iii. The third modification of this sound is used by the Swiss, 
 Tyrolese, and Dutch : to produce it the dorsum of the 
 tongue approaches the back part of the palate, or the 
 soft palate. The sound exists as diet (Hebr.), cha 
 (Arab.), and, according to Purkinje, in the Bohemian 
 language. 
 
 It would ill become me to dispute the learned Professor's account 
 of these three modifications of a sound, with which he must be so 
 well and I am so little acquainted practically ; otherwise I should be 
 inclined to suppose that they might be reduced to two, expressed by 
 gh and ch, and differing in the manner that I shall consider under G 
 and K. 
 G k The consonantal powers expressed by G and K in our language are 
 
 produced, as Wilkins says, " more inwardly by an interception of the 
 breath towards the throat by the middle or root of the tongue." J In 
 fact, the tongue is rendered convex and narrow, and the middle of the 
 convex surface is placed in contact with the bony palate, so as com- 
 pletely to interrupt the passage of the air. This position of the organs 
 is the same in both cases, but the former is sounded as g in gold, the 
 latter as c in cold, which difference is variously described by various 
 writers ; some calling g the hard, and c the soft sound, whilst others 
 reverse these designations. Be this as it may, the fact is that there 
 is a certain impulse given by a movement of the larynx to several 
 consonantal positions of the oral organs, which produces a very dis- 
 tinguishable difference in their sound. Hence are produced the several 
 pairs of consonantal positions, as 
 
 G C, gold and cold. 
 
 D T, do and to. 
 
 B P, ball and pall. 
 
 * Real Char. P. 3, c. 12. f Elem. Physiol, vol. i, p. 1048. 
 
 \ Real Char, ut sup. 
 
 D£C 16W48 
 
CHAP. XVI.] OF THE MECHANISM OF SPEECH. 301 
 
 V F, vile and file. 
 
 5 Z, seal and zeal. 
 
 6 and fl, thing and this. 
 C and J, nation and confusion. 
 
 This effect being allowed for, the common position of D and T is dt 
 as follows, viz. : an appulse or collision of the top of the tongue 
 against the teeth or upper gums, the lips and teeth are a little sepa- 
 rated, the voice passing through the mouth is completely interrupted 
 by the margin of the tongue being applied to the inside of the teeth of 
 the upper jaw and margin of the bony palate. 
 
 In B -and P, the breath is intercepted by the complete closure of b p 
 the lips. 
 
 V and F. " These letters," says Wilkins, " are formed by a vf 
 kind of straining or percolation of the breath through a chink between 
 the lower lip and upper teeth with some kind of murmur." The 
 breath is driven with considerable force through the mouth, and the 
 soft palate is elevated. 
 
 S and Z are framed by an appulse of the tongue toward the upper s z 
 teeth or gums, and then forcing out the breath with a vocal sound : 
 the tongue, however, is not in actual contact with the incisor teeth. 
 
 The Greek 6 is here used for the common th in thing : and the © s 
 Saxon $ for the common th in this. The sounds are produced by 
 applying the tip of the tongue at once to the upper and lower incisor 
 teeth, and then expelling the voice. 
 
 C J. These characters are adopted, the former C as answering to our 
 sh and the German sch ; and the latter to the French J in Jean. We 
 also give these two different sounds to ti, as in nation, and si, as in con- 
 fusion above cited. The sound is produced, as Wilkins says, " by a 
 percolation of the breath betwixt the tongue rendered concave and the 
 teeth both upper and lower." It must be added that the surface of 
 the- tongue is raised so as to be everywhere nearly in contact with the 
 bony palate, there being only a very small space left between them. 
 
 In L the tip of the tongue is loosely applied to the bony palate l 
 immediately behind the upper incisor teeth, so as not entirely to in- 
 terrupt the passage, and the air is allowed to escape on both sides 
 between the edges of the tongue and the bony palate. 
 
 E differs from the preceding in two circumstances — the tongue is R 
 applied to the bony palate more posteriorly, and the tip of the tongue 
 being loose, a vibratory motion is given to it. 
 
 All the preceding consonants are oral, I come now to those in which M 
 the air passes through the nasal passages. In M the lips are closed 
 nearly as in B ; the air passes entirely through the nostrils, but the 
 sound is partly produced by the vibration of the air in the mouth. 
 
 In N the sound is also nasal. In producing it the lips are open, N 
 the tongue is applied to the bony palate ; the greater part of the air 
 passes through the nose, but a very small portion passes through the 
 mouth. 
 
302 
 
 OF THE MECHANISM OF SPEECH. 
 
 Bf 
 
 Combina- 
 tions of 
 vowels. 
 
 Combined 
 consonants. 
 
 [chap. XVI. 
 
 A peculiar character (ex. gr. nf) seems to be wanted for expressing 
 the last nasal consonant, of which there are two modifications, the 
 first as in the English song, the other as in the French son. In both 
 the posterior part of the surface of the tongue is applied to the 
 posterior part of the bony palate, so as to prevent the air entirely from 
 entering the mouth ; the whole of the sound, therefore, passes through 
 the nose. And so much for the simple powers both of vowels and 
 consonants, forming together the following arrangement : — . 
 
 Vowels.— Y A a E I O W U. 
 
 Consonants, 
 
 i. Oral, HXGKDTBPVFSZe^CJLR. 
 ii. Nasal, M N llj. 
 
 461. I come now to the combinations, first of vowels, and then of 
 consonants. When two vowel sounds immediately succeed each 
 other, they are either pronounced distinctly and form separate syllables, 
 or else they are melted as it were together, and are then called 
 diphthongs, producing a mixed sound in which each vowel may, by a 
 slow pronunciation and an attentive ear be easily distinguished. In 
 particularising these, I must use the alphabetic characters above given, 
 for our own alphabetic system is so extremely absurd that we express 
 the diphthong yi by the single letter i ; the diphthong wa by w, as 
 a consonant, and a, as a vowel; and the single vowel w by two 
 vowels oo. Diphthongs are most frequently (though not always) com- 
 posed of such vowels as lie at a distance from each other in the organic 
 arrangement above stated ; and the stronger sounded vowel may be 
 either prefixed or suffixed, thus we have as strong prefixes—* 
 
 J 1 • 
 
 I, try, buy 
 
 
 
 at . 
 
 boy. 
 
 
 
 ai . 
 
 ay (provincially). 
 
 aw. 
 
 in German 
 
 , blau 
 
 
 yw. 
 
 in English, 
 
 owl. 
 
 
 ng suffixes : — 
 
 
 
 iy • 
 
 young . . . 
 
 wy . 
 
 work. 
 
 ia . 
 
 yawn . . 
 
 wa . 
 
 wall. 
 
 ia . 
 
 yarrow. 
 
 
 
 ie . 
 
 yellow . . 
 
 .we . 
 
 well. 
 
 ii . 
 
 ye 
 
 ,wi . 
 
 we. 
 
 io . 
 
 yoke ... 
 
 100 . 
 
 woe. 
 
 iw . 
 
 you .... 
 
 WW . 
 
 wood. 
 
 462. On the combination of consonants some ingenious remarks are- 
 made by Dr. Latham. Having distinguished the several couples of 
 consonants by the terms lene and aspirate, and each of these classes 
 ao-ain into sharp and flat, he observes that certain combinations of them 
 are incapable of being pronounced. Two or more mutes (says he) of 
 different degrees of sharpness and flatness are incapable of coming 
 together in the same syllable. For instance, b, v, d, g, z, &c, being 
 
CHAP. XVI.] OF THE MECHANISM OF SPEECH. 303 
 
 flat, and p, f, t, k, s, &c. , being sharp, such combinations as abt, avt, 
 apd, afd, agt, akd y atz, ads, &c, are unpronounceable."* Again : 
 " Certain sounds, in combination with others, have a tendency to 
 undergo changes."! Once more : letters are often inserted for euphony. 
 " In English the form which the Latin word Humerus takes is number, 
 in French nombre. The b makes no part of the original word, but 
 has been inserted for the sake of euphony. "| I would add that dif- 
 ferent nations seem to have a taste for different combinations. In 
 most cases where the English use st, the Germans, though they use it 
 in spelling, alter it in pronunciation. Our stand is written by them 
 stehen y but pronounced shtehen. These and similar remarks will be 
 found very useful in the historical investigation of language. 
 
 463. Words are distinguished by grammarians, not only according Quantity 
 to articulation, but also according to quantity and accent. Quantity 
 regards the time employed in utterance, and the term is generally 
 applied to the relative time employed in uttering the different portions 
 
 of words, the rules for which constitute prosody, and are more especially 
 referable to poetry in the classical languages.. These rales are well 
 known : it is known, for instance, that a vowel followed by two con- 
 sonants must form a long syllable, because the action of the muscles 
 necessary to produce so complicated a vocal sound must require a 
 longer time than if the movement were more simple. But the actual 
 effect on the ear produced to a Greek or Roman hearer, as part of 
 the pleasure of poetry, cannot be clearly perceived by a modern 
 reader. 
 
 464. Something of the same uncertainty hangs over the doctrine Accent. 
 of Accent as applied to a comparison between the living and dead 
 languages.. The subject has been learnedly investigated,* but with- 
 out leading to a very satisfactory result. The rules for the use of 
 accents in the Greek language are well known ; but the real effect 
 
 of those accents on the pronunciation of vocal sounds in the classical 
 ages is very uncertain. English poetry is said to be regulated by 
 accent ; but accent, in this sense,, applies rather to the force with which 
 a syllable is pronounced, than to that elevation or depression of voice 
 on which the ancient accents are supposed to depend. This part of 
 my subject, however, will be more conveniently discussed hereafter. 
 For the present, enough has been said on the mechanism of speech. 
 
 * English language, s. 76, % Ibid. s. 83. 
 
 f Ibid. s. 77. § Foster on Accent and Quantity. 
 
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