Lectures on Language As Particularly Connected with English Grammar.

LECTURE II.

FUN­DA­MEN­TAL PRIN­CI­PLES OF LAN­GUAGE.

Gen­er­al prin­ci­ples of Lan­guage.--Busi­ness of Gram­mar.--Chil­dren are Philoso­phers.--Things, ideas, and words.--Ac­tions.--Qual­ities of things.--Words with­out ideas.--Gram­mat­ical terms in­ap­pro­pri­ate.-- Prin­ci­ples of Lan­guage per­ma­nent.--Er­rors in men­tal sci­ence.--Facts ad­mit of no change.--Com­plex ideas.--Ideas of qual­ities.--An ex­am­ple.--New ideas.--Un­known words.--Signs with­out things sig­ni­fied.--Fixed laws reg­ulate mat­ter and mind.

All lan­guage de­pends on two gen­er­al prin­ci­ples.

_First._ The fixed and un­vary­ing laws of na­ture which reg­ulate mat­ter and mind.

_Sec­ond._ The agree­ment of those who use it.

In ac­cor­dance with these prin­ci­ples all lan­guage must be ex­plained. It is not on­ly need­less but im­pos­si­ble for us to de­vi­ate from them. They re­main the same in all ages and in all coun­tries. It should be the ob­ject of the gram­mar­ian, and of all who em­ploy lan­guage in the ex­pres­sion of ideas, to be­come in­ti­mate­ly ac­quaint­ed with their use.

It is the busi­ness of gram­mar to ex­plain, not on­ly ver­bal lan­guage, but al­so the sub­lime prin­ci­ples up­on which all writ­ten or spo­ken lan­guage de­pends. It forms an im­por­tant part of phys­ical and men­tal sci­ence, which, cor­rect­ly ex­plained, is abun­dant­ly sim­ple and ex­ten­sive­ly use­ful in its ap­pli­ca­tion to the af­fairs of hu­man life and the pro­mo­tion of hu­man en­joy­ment.

It will not be con­tend­ed that we are as­sum­ing a po­si­tion be­yond the ca­pac­ities of learn­ers, that the course here adopt­ed is too philo­soph­ic. Such is not the fact. Chil­dren are philoso­phers by na­ture. All their ideas are de­rived from things as pre­sent­ed to their ob­ser­va­tions. No moth­er learns her child to lisp the name of a thing which has no be­ing, but she choos­es ob­jects with which it is most fa­mil­iar, and which are most con­stant­ly be­fore it; such as fa­ther, moth­er, broth­er, sis­ter.

She con­stant­ly points to the ob­ject named, that a dis­tinct im­pres­sion may be made up­on its mind, and the thing sig­ni­fied, the idea of the thing, and the name which rep­re­sents it, are all in­sep­ara­bly as­so­ci­at­ed to­geth­er. If the fa­ther is ab­sent, the child may _think_ of him from the idea or im­pres­sion which his per­son and af­fec­tion has pro­duced in the mind. If the moth­er pro­nounces his _name_ with which it has be­come fa­mil­iar, the child will start, look about for the ob­ject, or thing sig­ni­fied by the _name_, fa­ther, and not be­ing able to dis­cov­er him, will set­tle down con­tent­ed with the _idea_ of him deeply im­pressed on the mind, and as dis­tinct­ly un­der­stood as if the fa­ther was present in per­son. So with ev­ery thing else.

Again, af­ter the child has be­come fa­mil­iar with the name of the be­ing called fa­ther; the name, idea and ob­ject it­self be­ing in­ti­mate­ly as­so­ci­at­ed the moth­er will next be­gin to teach it an­oth­er les­son; fol­low­ing most un­de­vi­at­ing­ly the course which na­ture and true phi­los­ophy mark out. The fa­ther comes and goes, is present or ab­sent. She says on his re­turn, fa­ther _come_, and the lit­tle one looks round to see the thing sig­ni­fied by the word fa­ther, the idea of which is dis­tinct­ly im­pressed on the mind, and which it now sees present be­fore it. But this loved ob­ject has not al­ways been here. It had looked round and called for the fa­ther. But the moth­er had told it _he was gone_. Fa­ther gone, fa­ther come, is her lan­guage, and here the child be­gins to learn ideas of ac­tions. Of this it had, at first, no no­tion what­ev­er, and nev­er thought of the fa­ther ex­cept when his per­son was present be­fore it, for no im­pres­sions had been dis­tinct­ly made up­on the mind which could be called up by a sound of which it could have no con­cep­tions what­ev­er. Now that it has ad­vanced so far, the idea of the fa­ther is re­tained, even tho he is him­self ab­sent, and the child be­gins to as­so­ciate the no­tion of com­ing and go­ing with his pres­ence or ab­sence. Fol­low­ing out this course the mind be­comes ac­quaint­ed with things and ac­tions, or the changes which things un­der­go.

Next, the moth­er be­gins to learn her off­spring the dis­tinc­tion and qual­ities of things. When the lit­tle sis­ter comes to it in in­no­cent play­ful­ness the moth­er says, “_good_ sis­ter,” and with the de­scrip­tive word _good_ it soon be­gins to as­so­ciate the qual­ity ex­pressed by the af­fec­tion­ate re­gard, of its sis­ter. But when that sis­ter strikes the child, or pesters it in any way, the moth­er says “_naughty_ sis­ter,” “bad sis­ter.” It soon com­pre­hends the de­scrip­tive words, _good_ and _bad_, and along with them car­ries the as­so­ci­ation of ideas which such con­duct pro­duces. In the same way it learns to dis­tin­guish the dif­fer­ence be­tween _great_ and _small_, _cold_ and _hot_, hard and soft.

In this man­ner the child be­comes ac­quaint­ed with the use of lan­guage. It first be­comes ac­quaint­ed with things, the idea of which is left up­on the mind, or, more prop­er­ly, the _im­pres­sion of which_, left on the mind, _con­sti­tutes the idea_; and a vo­cab­ulary of words are learned, which rep­re­sent these ideas, from which it may se­lect those best cal­cu­lat­ed to ex­press its mean­ing when­ev­er a con­ver­sa­tion is had with an­oth­er.

You will read­ily per­ceive the cor­rect­ness of our first propo­si­tion, that all lan­guage de­pends on the fixed and unerring laws of na­ture. Things ex­ist. A knowl­edge of them pro­duces ideas in the mind, and sounds or signs are adopt­ed as ve­hi­cles to con­vey these ideas from one to an­oth­er.

It would be ab­surd and ridicu­lous to sup­pose that any per­son, how­ev­er great, or learned, or wise, could em­ploy lan­guage cor­rect­ly with­out a knowl­edge of the things ex­pressed by that lan­guage. No mat­ter how chaste his words, how lofty his phras­es, how sweet the in­to­na­tions, or mel­low the ac­cents. It would avail him noth­ing if _ideas_ were not rep­re­sent­ed there­by. It would all be an un­known tongue to the hear­er or read­er. It would not be like the loud rolling thun­der, for that tells the won­drous pow­er of God. It would not be like the soft zephyrs of evening, the ra­di­ance of the sun, the twin­kling of the stars; for they speak the in­tel­li­gi­ble lan­guage of sub­lim­ity it­self, and tell of the kind­ness and pro­tec­tion of our Fa­ther who is in heav­en. It would not be like the sweet notes of the choral song­sters of the grove, for they war­ble hymns of grat­itude to God; not like the bod­ing of the dis­tant owl, for that tells the pro­found solem­ni­ty of night; not like the hun­gry li­on roar­ing for his prey, for that tells of death and plun­der; not like the dis­tant notes of the clar­ion, for that tells of blood and car­nage, of tears and an­guish, of wid­ow­hood and or­phan­age. It can be com­pared to noth­ing but a Ba­bel of con­fu­sion in which their own fol­ly is worse con­found­ed. And yet, I am sor­ry to say it, the lan­guages of all ages and na­tions have been too fre­quent­ly per­vert­ed, and com­piled in­to a het­ero­ge­neous mass of ab­struse, meta­phys­ical vol­umes, whose on­ly rec­om­men­da­tion is the el­egant bind­ings in which they are en­closed.

And gram­mars them­selves, whose pre­tend­ed ob­ject is to teach the rules of speak­ing and writ­ing cor­rect­ly, form but a mis­er­able ex­cep­tion to this sweep­ing re­mark. I de­fy any gram­mar­ian, au­thor, or teach­er of the num­ber­less sys­tems, which come, like the frogs of Egypt, all of one genus, to cov­er the land, to give a rea­son­able ex­pla­na­tion of even the terms they em­ploy to de­fine their mean­ing, if in­deed, mean­ing they have. What is meant by an “_in_-def­inite ar­ti­cle,” a _dis_-junc­tive _con_-junc­tion, an _ad_-verb which qual­ifies an _ad­jec­tive_, and “some­times an­oth­er _ad_-verb?” Such “parts of speech” have no ex­is­tence in fact, and their adop­tion in rules of gram­mar, have been found ex­ceed­ing­ly mis­chievous and per­plex­ing. “Ad­verbs and con­junc­tions,” and “_ad­ver­bial_ phras­es,” and “con­junc­tive ex­pres­sions,” may serve as com­mon sew­ers for a large and most use­ful class of words, which the teach­ers of gram­mar and lex­icog­ra­phers have been un­able to ex­plain; but learn­ers will gain lit­tle in­for­ma­tion by be­ing told that such is an _ad­ver­bial phrase_, and such, a _con­junc­tive ex­pres­sion_. This is an easy method, I con­fess, a sort of whole­sale traf­fic, in pars­ing (_pass­ing_) lan­guage, and may serve to cloak the ig­no­rance of the teach­ers and mak­ers of gram­mars. But it will re­flect lit­tle light on the prin­ci­ples of lan­guage, or prove very ef­fi­cient helps to “speak or write with pro­pri­ety.” Those who _think_, will de­mand the _mean­ing_ of these words, and the rea­son of their use. When that is as­cer­tained, lit­tle dif­fi­cul­ty will be found in giv­ing them a place in the com­pa­ny of re­spectable words. But I am di­gress­ing. More shall be said up­on this point in a fu­ture lec­ture, and in its prop­er place.

I was en­deav­or­ing to es­tab­lish the po­si­tion that all lan­guage de­pends up­on per­ma­nent prin­ci­ples; that words are the signs of ideas, and ideas are the im­pres­sions of things com­mu­ni­cat­ed to the mind thro the medi­um of some one of the five sens­es. I think I have suc­ceed­ed so far as sim­ple ma­te­ri­al things are con­cerned, to the sat­is­fac­tion of all who have heard me. It may, per­haps, be more dif­fi­cult for me to ex­plain the words em­ployed to ex­press com­plex ideas, and things of im­ma­te­ri­al­ity, such as mind, and its at­tributes. But the rules pre­vi­ous­ly adopt­ed will, I ap­pre­hend, ap­ply with equal ease and cor­rect­ness in this case; and we shall have cause to ad­mire the sim­ple yet sub­lime foun­da­tion up­on which the whole su­per­struc­ture of lan­guage is based.

In pur­su­ing this in­ves­ti­ga­tion I shall en­deav­or to avoid all ab­struse and meta­phys­ical rea­son­ing, present no wild con­jec­tures, or vain hy­pothe­ses; but con­fine my­self to plain, com­mon place mat­ter of fact. We have rea­son to re­joice that a won­der­ful im­prove­ment in the sci­ence and cul­ti­va­tion of the mind has tak­en place in these last days; that we are no longer puz­zled with the strange phan­toms, the wild spec­ula­tions which oc­cu­pied the gi­ant minds of a Descartes, a Male­branch, a Locke, a Reid, a Stew­art, and hosts of oth­ers, whose shin­ing tal­ents would have qual­ified them for the bright­est or­na­ments of lit­er­ature, re­al bene­fac­tors of mankind, had not their ed­uca­tion lead them in­to dark and meta­phys­ical rea­son­ings, a con­tin­ued tis­sue of the wildest va­garies, in which they be­came en­tan­gled, till, at length, they were en­tire­ly lost in the labyrinth of their own con­jec­tures.

The oc­ca­sion of all their dif­fi­cul­ty orig­inat­ed in an at­tempt to in­ves­ti­gate the fac­ul­ties of the mind with­out any means of get­ting at it. They did not con­tent them­selves with an adop­tion of the prin­ci­ples which lay at the foun­da­tion of all true phi­los­ophy, viz., that the facts to be ac­count­ed for, _do ex­ist_; that truth is eter­nal, and we are to be­come ac­quaint­ed with it by the means em­ployed for its de­vel­op­ment. They quit­ted the world of ma­te­ri­al­ity they in­hab­it­ed, re­fused to ex­am­ine the de­vel­op­ment of mind as the ef­fect of an ex­ist­ing cause; and at one bold push, en­tered the world of thought, and made the un­hal­lowed at­tempt to rea­son, a pri­ori, con­cern­ing things which can on­ly be known by their man­ifes­ta­tions. But they soon found them­selves in a strange land, con­fused with sights and sounds un­known, in the _ex­pla­na­tion_ of which they, of course, choose terms as un­in­tel­li­gi­ble to their read­ers, as the _ide­al re­al­ities_ were to them. This course, adopt­ed by Aris­to­tle, has been too close­ly fol­lowed by those who have come af­ter him.[2] But a new era has dawned up­on the phi­los­ophy of the mind, and a cor­re­spond­ing change in the method of in­cul­cat­ing the prin­ci­ples of lan­guage must fol­low.[3]

In all our in­ves­ti­ga­tions we must take things as we find them, and ac­count for them as far as we can. It would be a thank­less task to at­tempt a change of prin­ci­ples in any thing. That would be an en­croach­ment of the Cre­ator's rights. It be­longs to mor­tals to use the things they have as not abus­ing them; and to De­ity to reg­ulate the laws by which those things are gov­erned. And that man is the wis­est, the truest philoso­pher, and bright­est Chris­tian, who ac­quaints him­self with those laws as they do ex­ist in the reg­ula­tion of mat­ter and mind, in the pro­mo­tion of phys­ical and moral en­joy­ment, and en­deav­ors to con­form to them in all his thoughts and ac­tions.

From this ap­par­ent di­gres­sion you will at once dis­cov­er our ob­ject. We must not en­deav­or to change the prin­ci­ples of lan­guage, but to un­der­stand and ex­plain them; to as­cer­tain, as far as pos­si­ble, the ac­tions of the mind in ob­tain­ing ideas, and the use of lan­guage in ex­press­ing them. We may not be able to make our sen­ti­ments un­der­stood; but if they are not, the fault will orig­inate in no ob­scu­ri­ty in the facts them­selves, but in our in­abil­ity ei­ther to un­der­stand them or the words em­ployed in their ex­pres­sion. Hav­ing been in the habit of us­ing words with ei­ther no mean­ing or a wrong one, it may be dif­fi­cult to com­pre­hend the sub­ject of which they treat. A man may have a quan­ti­ty of sul­phur, char­coal, and ni­tre, but it is not un­til he learns their prop­er­ties and com­bi­na­tions that he can make gun­pow­der. Let us then adopt a care­ful and in­de­pen­dent course of rea­son­ing, re­solved to med­dle with noth­ing we do not un­der­stand, and to use no words un­til we know their mean­ing.

A com­plex idea is a com­bi­na­tion of sev­er­al sim­ple ones, as a tree is made up of roots, a trunk, branch­es, twigs, and leaves. And these again may be di­vid­ed in­to the wood, the bark, the sap, &c. Or we may em­ploy the botan­ical terms, and enu­mer­ate its ex­ter­nal and in­ter­nal parts and qual­ities; the whole anato­my and phys­iol­ogy, as well as va­ri­ety and his­to­ry of trees of that species, and show its char­ac­ter­is­tic dis­tinc­tions; for the mind re­ceives a dif­fer­ent im­pres­sion on look­ing at a maple, a birch, a poplar, a tamarisk, a sycamore, or hem­lock. In this way com­plex ideas are formed, dis­tinct in their parts, but blend­ed in a com­mon whole; and, in con­for­mi­ty with the law reg­ulat­ing lan­guage, words, sounds or signs, are em­ployed to ex­press the com­plex whole, or each dis­tinc­tive part. The same may be said of all things of like char­ac­ter. But this idea I will il­lus­trate more at large be­fore the close of this lec­ture.

First im­pres­sions are pro­duced by a view of ma­te­ri­al things, as we have al­ready seen; and the no­tion of ac­tion is ob­tained from a knowl­edge of the changes these things un­der­go. The idea of qual­ity and def­ini­tion is pro­duced by con­trast and com­par­ison. Chil­dren soon learn the dif­fer­ence be­tween a sweet ap­ple and a sour one, a white rose and a red one, a hard seat and a soft one, har­mo­nious sounds and those that are dis­cor­dant, a pleas­ant smell and one that is dis­agree­able. As the mind ad­vances, the ap­pli­ca­tion is var­ied, and they speak of a sweet rose, chang­ing from _taste_ and _sight_ to smell, of a sweet song, of a hard ap­ple, &c. Ac­cord­ing to the qual­ities thus learned, you may talk to them in­tel­li­gi­bly of the _sweet­ness_ of an ap­ple, the _col­or_ of a rose, the _hard­ness_ of iron, the _har­mo­ny_ of sounds, the _smell_ or scent of things which pos­sess that qual­ity. As these agree or dis­agree with their com­fort, they will call them _good_ or _bad_, and speak of the qual­ities of good­ness and bad­ness, as if pos­sessed by the thing it­self.

In this ap­par­ent­ly in­dis­crim­inate use of words, the ideas re­main dis­tinct; and each sign or ob­ject calls them up sep­arate­ly and as­so­ciates them to­geth­er, till, at length, in the sin­gle ob­ject is as­so­ci­at­ed all the ideas en­ter­tained of its size, qual­ities, re­la­tions, and affini­ties.

In this man­ner, af­ter long, per­se­ver­ing toil, prin­ci­ples of thought are fixed, and a foun­da­tion laid for the whole course of fu­ture think­ing and speak­ing. The ideas be­come less sim­ple and dis­tinct. Just as fast as the mind ad­vances in the knowl­edge of things, lan­guage keeps pace with the ideas, and even goes be­yond them, so that in pro­cess of time a sin­gle term will not un­fre­quent­ly rep­re­sent a com­plex­ity of ideas, one of which will sig­ni­fy a whole com­bi­na­tion of things.

On the oth­er hand, there are many in­stances where the sin­gle dec­la­ra­tion of a fact may con­vey to the un­tu­tored mind, a sin­gle thought or near­ly so, when the bet­ter cul­ti­vat­ed will take in­to the ac­count the whole pro­cess by which it is ef­fect­ed. To il­lus­trate: _a man killed a deer_. Here the boy would see and imag­ine more than he is yet ful­ly able to com­pre­hend. He will see the ob­vi­ous fact that the man lev­els his mus­ket, the gun goes off with a loud re­port, and the deer falls and dies. How this is all pro­duced he does not un­der­stand, but know­ing the fact he as­serts the sin­gle truth--the man killed the deer. As the child ad­vances, he will learn that the sen­tence con­veys to the mind more than he at first per­ceived. He now un­der­stands how it was ac­com­plished. The man had a gun. Then he must go back to the gun­smith and see how it was made, thence back to the iron tak­en from its bed, and wrought in­to bars; all the pro­cess­es by which it is brought in­to the shape of a gun, the tools and ma­chin­ery em­ployed; the wood for the stock, its qual­ity and pro­duc­tion; the size, form and col­or of the lock, the prin­ci­ple up­on which it moves; the flint, the ef­fect pro­duced by a col­li­sion with the steel, or a per­cus­sion cap, and its com­po­si­tion; till he finds a sin­gle gun in the hands of a man. The man is present with this gun. The mo­tives which brought him here; the move­ments of his limbs, reg­ulat­ed by the de­ter­mi­na­tions of the mind, and a thou­sand oth­er such thoughts, might be tak­en in­to the ac­count. Then the deer, his size, form, col­or, man­ner of liv­ing, next may claim a pass­ing thought. But I need not en­large. Here they both stand. The man has just seen the deer. As quick as thought his eye pass­es over the ground, sees the prey is with­in prop­er dis­tance, takes aim, pulls the trig­ger, that loosens a spring, which forces the flint against the steel; this pro­duces a spark, which ig­nites the char­coal, and the sul­phur and ni­tre com­bined, ex­plode and force the wad, which forces the ball from the gun, and is borne thro the air till it reach­es the deer, en­ters his body by dis­plac­ing the skin and flesh, de­ranges the an­imal func­tions, and death en­sues. The whole and much more is ex­pressed in the sin­gle phrase, “a man killed a deer.”

It would be need­less for me to stop here, and ex­am­ine all the op­er­ations of the mind in com­ing at this state of knowl­edge. That is not the ob­ject of the present work. Such a du­ty be­longs to an­oth­er trea­tise, which may some day be un­der­tak­en, on log­ic and the sci­ence of the mind. The hint here giv­en will en­able you to per­ceive how the mind ex­pands, and how lan­guage keeps pace with ev­ery ad­vanc­ing step, and, al­so, how com­bi­na­tions are made from sim­ple things, as a house is made of tim­ber, boards, shin­gles, nails, and paints; or of bricks, stone, and mor­tar; as the case may be, and when com­plet­ed, a sin­gle term may ex­press the idea, and you speak of a wood, or a brick house. Fol­low­ing this sug­ges­tion, by trac­ing the op­er­ations of the mind in the young child, or your own, very minute­ly, in the ac­qui­si­tion of any knowl­edge be­fore whol­ly un­known to you, as a new lan­guage, or a new sci­ence; botany, min­er­al­ogy, chem­istry, or phrenol­ogy; you will read­ily dis­cov­er how the mind re­ceives new im­pres­sions of things, and a new vo­cab­ulary is adopt­ed to ex­press the ideas formed of plants, min­er­als, chem­ical prop­er­ties, and the de­vel­op­ment of the ca­pac­ities of the mind as de­pend­ing on ma­te­ri­al or­gans; how these things are changed and com­bined; and how their ex­is­tence and qual­ities, changes and com­bi­na­tions, are ex­pressed by words, to be re­tained, or con­veyed to oth­er minds.

But sup­pose you talk to a per­son whol­ly un­ac­quaint­ed with these things, will he un­der­stand you? Talk to him of sta­mens, pis­tils, ca­lyx­es; of mo­nan­dria, dian­dria, trian­dria; of gyp­sum, talc, cal­care­ous spar, quartz, topaz, mi­ca, gar­net, pyrites, horn­blende, augite, ac­tyno­lite; of hex­ahe­dral, pris­mat­ic, rhom­boidal, do­dec­ahe­dral; of acids and al­ka­lies; of oxy­gen, hy­dro­gen, ni­tro­gen and car­bon; of the con­fig­ura­tion of the brain, and its rel­ative pow­ers; do all this, and what will he know of your mean­ing? So of all sci­ence. Words are to be un­der­stood from the things they are em­ployed to rep­re­sent. You may as well talk to a man in the he­brew, chi­nese, or choctaw lan­guages, as in our own, if he does not know what is sig­ni­fied by the words se­lect­ed as the medi­um of thought.

Your lan­guage may be most pure, per­fect, full of mean­ing, but you can­not make your­self un­der­stood till your hear­ers can look thro your signs to the things sig­ni­fied. You may as well present be­fore them a pic­ture of _noth­ing_.

The great fault in the pop­ular sys­tem of ed­uca­tion is eas­ily ac­count­ed for, par­tic­ular­ly in ref­er­ence to lan­guage. Chil­dren are taught to study signs with­out look­ing at the thing sig­ni­fied. In this way they are mere copy­ists, and the mind can nev­er ex­pand so as to make them in­de­pen­dent, orig­inal thinkers. In fact, they can, in this way, nev­er learn to rea­son well or em­ploy lan­guage cor­rect­ly; no more than a painter can be suc­cess­ful in his art, by mere­ly look­ing at the pic­tures of oth­ers with­out hav­ing ev­er seen the orig­inals. A good artist is a close ob­serv­er of na­ture. So chil­dren should be left free to ex­am­ine and re­flect, and the signs will then serve their prop­er use--the means of ac­quir­ing the knowl­edge of things. In vain you may give a schol­ar a knowl­edge of the He­brew, Greek, or Latin, learn him to trans­late with ra­pid­ity or speak our own lan­guage flu­ent­ly. If he has not there­by learned the knowl­edge of things sig­ni­fied by such lan­guage, he is, in prin­ci­ple, ad­vanced no far­ther than the par­rot which says “pret­ty poll, pret­ty poll.”

I am hap­py, how­ev­er, in the con­sid­er­ation that a valu­able change is tak­ing place in this re­spect. Ge­og­ra­phy is no longer taught on the old sys­tems, but maps are giv­en to rep­re­sent more vivid­ly land and wa­ter, rivers, is­lands, and moun­tains. The study of arith­metic, chem­istry, and near­ly all the sci­ences have been ma­te­ri­al­ly im­proved with­in a few years. Gram­mar alone re­mains in qui­et pos­ses­sion of its un­ques­tioned au­thor­ity. Its nine “parts of speech,” its three gen­ders, its three cas­es, its half dozen kinds of pro­nouns, and as many moods and tens­es, have rarely been dis­qui­et­ed. A host of book mak­ers have fon­dled around them, but few have dared mo­lest them, find­ing them so snug­ly en­sconced un­der the sanc­ti­ty of age, and the ven­er­at­ed opin­ions of learned and good men. Of the num­ber­less at­tempts to sim­pli­fy gram­mar, what has been the suc­cess? Where­in do mod­ern “sim­pli­fiers” dif­fer from Mur­ray? and he was on­ly a _com­pil­er_! They have all dis­cov­ered his er­rors. But who has cor­rect­ed them? They have all de­vi­at­ed some­what from his man­ner. But what is that but say­ing, that with all his gram­mat­ical knowl­edge, he could not ex­plain his own mean­ing?

All the trou­ble orig­inates in this; the rules of gram­mar have not been sought for where they are on­ly to be found, in the laws that gov­ern mat­ter and thought. Ar­bi­trary rules have been adopt­ed which will nev­er ap­ply in prac­tice, ex­cept in spe­cial cas­es, and the at­tempt to bind lan­guage down to them is as ab­surd as to un­der­take to chain thought, or stop the wa­ters of Ni­agara with a straw. Lan­guage will go on, and keep pace with the mind, and gram­mar should ex­plain it so as to be cor­rect­ly un­der­stood.

I wish you to keep these prin­ci­ples dis­tinct­ly in view all thro my re­marks, that you may chal­lenge ev­ery po­si­tion I as­sume till proved to be cor­rect--till you dis­tinct­ly un­der­stand it and def­inite im­pres­sions are made up­on your minds. In this way you will dis­cov­er a beau­ty and per­fec­tion in lan­guage be­fore un­known; its rules will be found few and sim­ple, hold­ing with most un­yield­ing tenac­ity to the sub­lime prin­ci­ples up­on which they de­pend; and you will have rea­son to ad­mire the works and adore the char­ac­ter of the great Par­ent In­tel­lect, whose pres­ence and pro­tec­tion per­vade all his works and reg­ulate the laws of mat­ter and mind. You will feel your­selves in­vol­un­tar­ily filled with sen­ti­ments of grat­itude for the gift of mind, its af­fec­tions, pow­ers, and means of op­er­ation and com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and re­solved more than ev­er to em­ploy these fac­ul­ties in hu­man im­prove­ment and the ad­vance­ment of gen­er­al hap­pi­ness.