sophy on a study of the phenomena of the external world, wasted their time in vain endeavours to build them on preconceived ideas of matter and motion. But while the Reviewer has brought forward this principle, so essential to grammatical science, he has, we think, totally overlooked another, of equal importance, the want of attention to which has involved him in inextricable metaphysical perplexities. Words, as he quotes from Horne Tooke, are “the names of things (p. 91);" but it should be added that, as words are the creatures of the human mind, they are the names of things, not as things are in themselves, but such as mankind imagine them to be. A grammarian, therefore, is not to inquire into the real metaphysical essence or nature of things; his business is to ascertain in what light things are considered by mankind, and he may be assured that it is according to these considerations, and not according to the actual essence of things in themselves, that human language is constituted. In this view, the division of the parts of speech, as given in common grammars, is not to be despised, or hastily rejected; for it is the division which the general experience of mankind has shewn to exist in actual language; and it is no small argument against any philological theory, to find that it departs widely from the system which experience has thus established.

Had the Reviewer attended to this principle, he would, we think, have hesitated to lay down such doctrines as the following:

"A rigorous analysis of the Indo-European tongues shews, if we mistake not, that they are reducible to two very simple elements: 1, abstract nouns, denoting the simple properties or attributes of things; 2, pronouns, originally denoting the relations of place. All other descriptions of words are formed out of these two classes, either by composition or symbolical application." p. 88. Now most assuredly, this is not the light in which things are considered by mankind, and we doubt whether the most refined reasoning would succeed in persuading any one, that the objects, with which he is acquainted in external nature and internal conception, are nothing but abstract nouns and pronouns. The fault here lies in an attempt to make language simpler than nature intended it to be. If we examine our ideas of objects existing externally in nature, or internally in our own minds, we shall find them divided into three great classes. They are ideas of substances, of qualities, or of events. These terms we confess our inability to define; at the same time, we are persuaded that they are universally understood, and that no metaphysical subtlety can overcome our perception of their essential difference. When it is said, "The round stone is falling," every one sees at once, that "the stone" is a substance, "round" a quality, and "is falling" an event, and that these three classes of ideas can be no more confounded than those of a colour, a sound, and a perfume. In all languages, therefore, that have yet been discovered, there are three great classes of words-substantives, adjectives, and verbs, to correspond with these classes of ideas.

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We are aware of the difficulties that may be urged against this classification. To begin with substance; unanswerable objections may be urged against the existence of this proteus. It may be said, as is done by the Reviewer, that our notions of matter are conceptions founded on perception; in other words, we judge of it by its properties, as they are discernible by our bodily senses." Hence we have no conception of material, or indeed of immaterial, objects, except as collections of properties. Of their essence we are ignorant, and substance is an inanity, on which the more we meditate the less we understand it. All this, and much more, may be true, metaphysically; but it is not so grammatically. It is certain that mankind do not look upon a stone as a collec

tion of properties, but as a substance possessing those properties; and that it is upon this hypothesis, true or false, that human language has been framed, and that its principles, consequently, must be investigated. As to adjectives and verbs, the radical mistake concerning them has been the attempt to consider both as the same class of words, under the name of attributes. We shall not stop to inquire whether they both can or cannot with propriety be called so, as we hold this to be a mere verbal dispute; we shall only observe that, if they be both attributes, they are attributes of essentially different kinds; the one being the attribution of a quality, the other of an event. An event is in itself essentially different from a quality, and as an accessory involves the ideas of time, beginning, and end, of which a quality is independent.

We may add, that prepositions we have always been accustomed to consider as expressions for the relations existing among substances and events; conjunctions as expressions for links of reasoning in continued narrations or propositions.

These considerations induce us to hesitate respecting some of the Reviewer's positions. Thus, speaking of the Sanscrit roots, he says:—

"They will be found on examination to express simple qualities, having no existence except as predicated of some given subject. Some of them are employed as abstract nouns, in their simplest form; many others become so by the addition of a small suffix, apparently of pronominal origin." p. 89.

Now, as we before observed, the Sanscrit roots are really no parts of speech, or of the practical language, at all; they are mere grammatical and lexicographical abbreviations, and are never used as significant of any thing in actual speech. That they may become abstract nouns, or any other part of speech, by the addition of a suffix, is indeed true; but in this case they cease to be roots, and it will be difficult to prove these suffixes to be pronouns.

Again" But, it will be asked, what are names of things? We answer, they are attributive nouns, used, by a sort of synecdoche, to express a substance by one or more of its qualities." This is farther explained in the next page: "Concrete nouns, in which a single attribute stands synecdochically for many." Now, the direct meaning of these sentences is, that, if one quality be mentioned, the hearer, by intuition, perceives that a number of others are to be joined with it; that if, for example, the speaker says "round," the hearer understands that he means also to say hard, heavy, great, incombustible, pulverizable, inorganic, &c. ; in a word, that he means to express what the vulgar intend by the word stone, and that this word really in itself means one or other of the above qualities, and nothing more. But surely this is neither the right use of language nor of reason. The Reviewer supports his opinion by a reference to the word atom, which, he says, implies one quality. But this is plainly an unfair instance, as atom is a compound word, the meaning of whose component radicles is known. Take any of the primitive substantives of a language, as dog, horse, house, and let us ask, what quality do any of these words imply? The answer of common sense is, no one quality in particular, but that they express the substances to which all the qualities of a dog, horse, or house belong. In short, as may be learned from the Mother's Grammar, these words are not adjectives but substantives.

The Reviewer goes on, p. 91:-

"There has been much wrangling among grammarians as to the nature of adjectives, and their claim to be considered a distinct part of speech. Tooke's chapter on the subject is, in many respects, one of the best portions of his work. He has shown, satisfactorily, that simple adjectives only differ from

substantives in their application, and that those with distinctive terminations are, in reality, compound words, having substantives for their basis. He does not, indeed, explain the nature of the additional elements very happily, when he resolves en, ed, and ig into his favourite imperatives give, add, join; and he has, moreover, weakened his leading position by his loose and inaccurate method of stating it. He says: 'An adjective is the name of a thing, which is directed to be joined to some other name of a thing. I maintain that the adjective is equally and altogether as much the name of a thing as the noun substantive, and so I say of all words whatever. For that is not a word which is not the name of a thing. Every word being a sound significant, must be a sign, and if a sign, the name of a thing. But a noun substantive is the name of a thing, and nothing more. If, indeed, it were true, that adjectives were not the names of things, there could be no attribution by adjectives, for you cannot attribute nothing. How much more comprehensive would any term be by the attribution to it of nothing? Adjectives, therefore, as well as substantives, must equally denote substances; and substance is attributed to substance by the adjective contrivance of language.' All this jangling might have been avoided if, instead of saying that words denote things or substances,—terms at the best of ambiguous import, and open to endless cavil,-it had been stated that they denote the attributes, and categories, or relations of things. It might be difficult to prove that space is a substance, according to any legitimate meaning of the term; but there can be no doubt as to its being an attribute of every material substance, which must be more or less extended."

Now to us, we will confess, Tooke's chapter on adjectives has always appeared one of the weakest parts of his work, and to be founded on a palpable fallacy. His assertion, that "an adjective is the name of a thing, which is directed to be joined to some other name of a thing," is supported by the single example of golden, an adjective immediately derived from a substantive, and which, of course, from its very nature, must give some idea of the union of its root to the substance which the adjective qualifies. But this is plainly equivalent to a petitio principii, the fallacy of which appears at once, when a primitive is substituted for a derivative adjective. Admitting that “ a golden ring" signifies "a ring add gold" (an expression which, however, appears to us to belong to no human language whatever), what, we ask, is the thing to which ring is joined in the expression," a yellow ring?" There is here no termination that can be construed to mean "add" or "join ;" and to say that "a yellow ring" was originally "a ring add yellowness," is to say what certainly never took place in any language since the creation. Yellow is not a derivative from yellowness, but yellowness from yellow; yellow must, therefore, have been formed first, and on being joined to a substantive, implies, not that a thing, but that a quality, is joined to a substance.

The whole of Tooke's reasoning is, in fact, a quibble on the word thing, which he uses sometimes as synonimous with substance, and sometimes as including the whole range of ideas. To say that every sound significant must be the name of a thing, i. e. of a substance, is plainly erroneous; it may be the name of a quality, or an event, ideas equally clear as those of substances. Qualities may be attributed to substances, and events to their subjects; but the attribution of substance to substance, seems to us to be almost absolute

nonsense.

"Simple adjectives only differ from substantives in their application;" that is, “differ in their application only." But in what way can one class of words differ from another except in their application? It is in their application that

their very essence consists. Why the Reviewer should think "attributes, categories and relations" less ambiguous than "things or substances," we do not know. To us it appears that the latter terms are more intelligible than the former. By a substance, we understand that which possesses, or is the substratum of, qualities, professing to explain the metaphysical essence of neither the one nor the other, but firmly believing that every intelligent being knows what is meant by both. In this view, there can be no difficulty in considering space as a substance, possessing the qualities of length, breadth, thickness, immobility, penetrability, eternal duration, &c. To call it an attribute, is a perversion of language. The Reviewer proceeds:

"We conceive that nouns may be defined as follows:-1. Abstract nouns, denoting qualities of things simply; 2. Concrete nouns, in which a single attribute stands synecdochically for many; 3. Adjectives, i. e. attributes used as descriptive epithets, being sometimes simple terms, e. g. black, white, choice; sometimes compound words, as sorrowful, godlike, friendly, careless, words which it is unnecessary to analyze. Simple adjectives only occur in particular languages. In Sanscrit, Greek, Latin, and many others, all adjectives have distinctive terminations, which, as Tooke acutely remarks, were originally separate words. Most of these terminations have a possessive signification; for example: barbatus barbà præditus; others denote similarity, abundance, privation, analogous to our like, ful, less; and in all cases, they do not so much belong to the attribute as to the subject. Vir opulentus is equivalent to Vir præditus divitiis, and the termination lentus, undoubtedly significant, to borrow Tooke's phrase, puts the word in condition to be joined to some substantive." p. 91.

Now, to understand all this, it is necessary to enter a little more minutely into the principles which govern the formation of adjectives; these will appear more distinctly in English than in most other languages, as being with us uncombined with any relations of gender, number, or case.

There are some qualities which cannot be said to be more particularly connected with one class of substances than with a thousand others; such as large, small, long, short, thick, thin, high, low, black, white, and so on. These are expressed by primitive radical words, without termination or composition of any kind, and they are known to be adjectives simply by their notorious meaning. Others again express qualities, either related or peculiar to, or most chiefly conspicuous in, a particular substance or class of substances. Such as golden, foolish, fatherly, Roman, Spaniard, bearded, wealthy, sorrowful, poetical, &c., which indicate qualities somehow particularly related to gold, fool, father, Rome, Spain, beard, wealth, sorrow, poet, &c.

Now, experience tells us that mankind will put old words to almost any use whatever, rather than invent new, as the Reviewer justly observes: "We may be assured that they did no such thing (as invent words); they only made new applications of those that already existed, according to some real or fancied analogy." Upon this principle, they applied a termination to an already existing name of a substance, to express a quality in some way peculiarly related to that substance. Such terminations may, therefore, be called terminations of quality. To suppose that these we have given, and many more that might be added, such as ous, ar, ie, al, ine, ive, ing, &c., are all abbreviations of a verb signifying add, is evidently absurd. If not, what are they? The Reviewer appears to think that two, at least, are explained, that is, sorrowful and fatherly, by resolving these words into full of sorrow and like a father. But this only removes the difficulty one step back. For here full and like are both adjectives,

and the etymologist, according to his own system, is bound to show from what substantive they are derived, and what is the termination in these two, as we believe them, simple words, which implies add or join. In other words, when we speak of a full cup, he is to show what is the termination in full, which can resolve this phrase into "a cup add fulness."

This appears still more conspicuously in those adjectives, whose abstract noun is formed by a change in the middle vowel. Thus, in long, to say that a long stick can by any etymological process be derived from a stick add length," seems to us to be making any thing out of any thing.

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Such then is the state of the English language. As it requires its adjectives, in almost every case, to be placed immediately contiguous to their substantive, they require no terminations of number, gender, or case. If primitive, they are radical words; if derivative, they are so by the addition of a termination of quality only. But in other languages, particularly Latin, Greek, and Sanscrit, an adjective may be carried away almost to any distance from its substantive, and may be mixed among other adjectives and other substantives with which it has no connexion. Some contrivance is, therefore, necessary to point out the particular substantive to which the adjective in that case belongs, and this necessity is the real origin of the distinctions of gender, by which grammarians have been so much puzzled. By these distinctions, substantives are divided into three great classes of masculine, feminine, and neuter. The chance, therefore, is, that when several substances are mentioned together, they will not all belong to the same class, but that one will belong to one and one to another. If, therefore, three corresponding terminations be given to adjectives, each of which indicates that the quality is to be considered as residing in a substantive of one of these classes only, it is plain that, however far the adjective may be separated from its substantive, it will still be known to belong to it and to it alone. Thus, in the line,

El liquidum spisso secrevit ab aëre cœlum,— though liquidum be at the beginning, ahd cælum at the end of the line, yet, since it is known that cælum is a substantive of the third or neuter class, and that um is that termination which is appropriated to adjectives connected to substantives of this class, it is seen at once that liquidum can belong to no. other substantive than cœlum. The Reviewer's explanation of barbatus and opulentus, therefore, as having terminations expressive of possession, is imperfect. The truth is, each of these words has a double termination, at and ent, to indicate that the words express qualities, and us to indicate that these qualities reside in substantives of the first or masculine class.

Let us suppose it to be the custom for every profession to have a particular colour of dress, and the wives to wear the same colour as their husbands. In every small company, unless the odds were very unfavourable, in having several physicians, several lawyers, or several divines, the dress would at once indicate which wife belonged to each husband, however distant might be their seat at the dinner-table. Such is exactly the use which the common terminations of gender serve between substantives and adjectives in Greek, Latin, and Sanscrit. But in English, as the substantive husband and adjective wife always sit next each other, such regulations about their dress are unnecessary.

To these terminations of gender, there are to be added three of number, which may be threefold, and of case, which may be five in Greek, six in Latin, and eight in Sanscrit, and we see at once the reason why adjectives are furnished in these languages with terminations corresponding to all these combinations. It is to point out to which particular substantive in the sentence an