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must here be thought of as adjective and adverb at once, i. e. (in Latin) as equal at once to exigui, small, and to parum, not enough. For want of attention to this, the line has been erroneously edited thus:

Wisdom and wit are seldom seen.

If any one wishes for more illustrations of this fact, that the grammatical character of a word is only a habit-one actual habit out of many possible ones-he should consider some of the following references to Shakspeare.

Winter's Tale, i. I. 28, vast (substantive).

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223. These examples all point to the one conclusion that the quality of speech-part-ship (if the expression may be for once admitted), is not a fixed and absolute one, but subject to and dependent upon the relations of each word to the other words with which it is forming a sentence. If we have recourse, for example's sake, to those languages which have preserved their grammar in the most primitive and rudimentary condition, we find that each word has retained its natural faculty for discharging all the functions of the parts of speech.

In Chinese there is no formal distinction of substantive, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition. The same root, according to its position in a sentence, may be employed to convey

the meaning of great, greatness, greatly, and to be great. Everything in fact depends in Chinese on the proper collocation of words in a sentence. Between this state of things and the development of the modern languages, there has intervened the flectional state of speech, of which the grammatical character is as nearly as possible the direct opposite to that which has been stated concerning the Chinese. In the flectional state of language, each word carries about with it a formal mark of distinction, by which the habitual vocation of that word is known. Thus in Greek the word πόνος, even standing alone, bears the aspect of being a noun in the nominative case; but the English word labour, standing alone, is no more a noun than it is a verb, and no more a verb than it is a noun. The flectional languages are not all equally flectional; this character has its degrees. The Greek is not so rigidly flectional as the Latin. But both of them are far more so than any of the languages of modern Europe. Of the great languages, that which has most shaken off inflections is the English, and next to the English, the French. We have but a very few inflections remaining in our language. This increases the freedom with which the language moves. We are recovering some of that long-lost and infantine elasticity which was the property of primitive speech.

224. But while the modern languages, and English especially, are casting off that cocoon of inflections which the habits of thousands of years had gradually swathed about them, there is no possibility of their getting back to a Chinese state of verbal homogeneousness. Such a state is incompatible with a high condition of development. A language of which no part has any fixed character must rank low among languages, just as among animals those which have no distinction of flesh, bone, sinew, hair. Or, as in

communities of men, division of labour, distinct vocations, and all the concomitant rigidity of individual habit, is necessary to advanced civilisation.

There is no appearance of a tendency to fall back into a primitive state of language. The freedom which modern languages are asserting for themselves as against the restraints of flexion, may be carried out to its extremest issues, and no appearance would ever arise of a tendency backwards to a state of pulpy homogeneousness. For there is a movement from which there is no going back, a slow but incessant movement, which gradually creates a distinction among words greater and more deeply seated than that of the parts of speech. This is a movement in which all languages partake more or less, according to the vigour of intellectual life with which they are animated. This is a movement which rears barriers of distinction between one and another class of words as immoveable as the sea-wall which the sea itself has sometimes built to sever the pasture from the bed of the ocean. The explanation of this movement must occupy another chapter.

CHAPTER V.

OF PRESENTIVE AND SYMBOLIC WORDS,

AND OF INFLECTIONS.

225. PHILOLOGY makes more use of the signification of words than grammar does. For grammar deals only with the literary forms, functions, and habits of words; philology deals with the very words themselves. Grammar regards words as the instruments of literature: philology regards them as the exponents of mind. Philology has to do with language in its fullest sense, as being that whole compound thing which is made up of voice and meaning, sound and signification, written form and associated idea.

It appertains to philology to omit none of the phenomena of language, but to give them all their due consideration. Hence it comes to pass that the outward and the inward, the form and the signification, will come by turns under review. And though the inward or mental side of language will occupy less of our space than its correlative, yet each reference to it will be more in the nature of a reference to principle, and will score its results deeper on our whole method of proceeding.

As we advance, the subject grows upon our hands. We cannot treat of our native language in a philological manner without getting down to some fundamental principles. In the present work we began like a botanist with the flower; but the progress of the enquiry leads in due time through

the whole economy of the plant, and will at length bring us to its root. While we dwelt over the historical circumstances in the midst of which our language expanded to the light, while we noted the source from which it was supplied with alphabetic characters, while we surveyed its spelling and pronunciation, and its homely interjections, we were acting like a botanist examining successive florets of the multitudinous head of some grassy inflorescence. But now we move down the stalk which bears many such florets, and we have to admit principles which embrace the systems of many languages. At this point we enter upon the very heart of the subject; and the growing importance of the matter makes me fear lest I should fail in the exposition of it. All things cannot be rendered equally easy for the student, and I must here ask him to lend me the vigour of his attention while I try to expound that upon which will hinge much of the meaning of chapters to come.

226. There is a distinction in the signification of words which calls for primary attention in philology. I would ask the reader to contemplate such words as spade, heron, handsaw, flag-staff, barn-door; and then to turn his mind to such as the following, an, by, but, else, for, from, he, how, I, it, if, in, not, never, on, over, since, the, therefore, they, under, who, where, yet, you. It will be at once felt that there is a gulf between these two sorts of words, and that there must be a natural distinction between them.

The one set presents objects to the mind, the other does not. Some of them, such as the pronouns, continue to reflect an object once presented, as John he. But there is a difference in nature between the word John and the word he. If I say at Jerusalem.... there, the word Jerusalem belongs to the one class, and the words at, there, belong to the other.

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