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those parts of speech which the Greek grammarians are found to acknowledge. The Latins only differ in having no article, and in separating the interjection, as a part of itself, which the Greeks include among the species of adverbs.

What then shall we determine? why are there not more species of words? why so many? or if neither more nor fewer, why these and not others?

To resolve, if possible, these several queries, let us examine any sentence that comes in our way, and see what differences we can discover in its parts. For example, the same sentence above,

The man that hath no music, &c.

One difference soon occurs, that some words are variable, and others invariable. Thus the word man may be varied into man's and men; hath, into have, hast, had, &c. Sweet into sweeter and sweetest; fit into fitter and fittest. On the contrary, the words the, in, and, and some others, remain as they are, and cannot be altered.

And yet it may be questioned, how far this difference is essential. For, in the first place, there are variations which can be hardly called necessary, because only some languages have them, and others have them not. Thus the Greeks have the dual variation, which is unknown both to the moderns and to the ancient Latins. Thus the Greeks and Latins vary their adjectives by the triple variation of gender, case, and number; whereas the English never vary them in any of those ways, but through all kinds of concord preserve them still the same. Nay, even those very variations, which appear most necessary, may have their places supplied by other methods; some by auxiliars, as when for Bruti, or Bruto, we say "of Brutus," "to Brutus ; some by mere position, as when for Brutum amavit Cassius, we say, "Cassius loved Brutus." For here the accusative, which in Latin is known any where from its variation, is in English only known from its position or place.

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If, then, the distinction of variable and invariable will not answer our purpose, let us look further, for some other more essential.

Suppose, then, we should dissolve the sentence above cited, and view its several parts as they stand separate and detached. Some, it is plain, still preserve a meaning, (such as man, music, sweet, &c.) others, on the contrary, immediately lose it, (such as and, the, with, &c.) Not that these last have no meaning at all, but in fact they never have it, but when in company or associated.

Now it should seem that this distinction, if any, was essential. For all words are significant, or else they would not be words; and if every thing not absolute is of course relative, then will all words be significant either absolutely or relatively.

With respect, therefore, to this distinction, the first sort of words may be called significant by themselves; the latter may be called significant by relation; or if we like it better, the first sort may be called principals, the latter accessories. The first are like those stones in the basis of an arch, which are able to support themselves, even when the arch is destroyed; the latter are like those stones in its summit or curve, which can no longer stand, than while the whole subsists."

This distinction being admitted, we thus pursue our speculations. All things whatever either exist as the energies or affections of some other thing, or without being the energies or affections of some other thing. If they exist as the energies or affections of something else, then are they called attributes. Thus to think is the attribute of a man; to be white, of a swan; to fly, of an eagle; to be four-footed, of a horse. If they exist not after this manner, then are they called substances. Thus man, swan, eagle, and horse, are none of them attributes, but all substances, because however they may exist in time and place, yet neither of these, nor of any thing else, do they exist as energies or affections.

And thus all things whatsoever, being either substances or attributes, it follows of course that all words which are significant as principals, must needs be significant of either the one or the other. If they are significant of substances, they are called substantives; if of attributes, they are called attributives. So that all words whatever, significant as principals, are either substantives or attributives.

Again, as to words, which are only significant as accessories,

Apollonius of Alexandria (one of the acutest authors that ever wrote on the subject of grammar) illustrates the different power of words, by the different power of letters. Ετι, ὃν τρόπον τῶν στοιχείων τὰ μέν ἐστι φωνήεντα, ἃ καὶ καθ ̓ ἑαυτὰ φωνὴν ἀποτελεῖ τὰ δὲ σύμφωνα, ἅπερ ἄνευ τῶν φωνηέντων οὐκ ἔχει ῥητὴν τὴν ἐκφώνησιν. τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον ἐστὶν ἐπινοῆσαι καὶ 'πὶ τῶν λέξεων. αἱ μὲν γὰρ αὐτὴν, τρόπον τινὰ τῶν φωνηέντων, ῥηταί εἰσι· καθάπερ ἐτὶ τῶν ῥημάτων, ὀνομάτων, αντωνυμιῶν, ἐπιῥημάτων-αἱ δὲ, ὥσπερεί σύμφωνα, αναμένουσι τὰ φωνήεντα, οὐ δυνάμενα, κατ' ἰδίαν ῥητὰ εἶναι—καθάπερ ἐπὶ τῶν προθέσεων, τῶν ἄρθρων, τῶν συνδέσμων τὰ γὰρ τοιαῦτα ἀεὶ τῶν μορίων συσσημαίνει. “ In the same manner, as of the elements or letters, some are vowels, which of themselves complete a sound; others are consonants, which, without the help of vowels, have no express vocality; so likewise may we conceive as to the nature of words. Some of them, like vowels, are of themselves expressive, as is the case of verbs, nouns, pronouns, and adverbs; others, like con

sonants, wait for their vowels, being unable to become expressive by their own proper strength, as is the case of prepositions, articles, and conjunctions; for these parts of speech are always consignificant, that is, are only significant when associated to something else.” Apollon. de Syntaxi, l. i. c. 3. Itaque quibusdam philosophis placuit nomen et verbum solas esse partes orationis ; catera vero, adminicula vel juncturas earum: quomodo navium partes sunt tabulæ et trabes, cætera autem (id est, cera, stuppa, et clavi et similia) vincula et conglutinationes partium navis (hoc est, tabularum et trabium) non partes navis dicuntur. Prisc. l. xi. 913.

• Thus Aristotle: Νῦν μὲν οὖν τύπῳ εἴρηται, τί ποτ' ἐστὶν ἡ οὐσία, ὅτι τὸ μὴ καθ ̓ ὑποκειμένου, ἀλλὰ καθ ̓ οὗ τὰ ἄλλα. Metaph. Z. y. p. 106. edit. Sylb.

P This division of things into substance and attribute seems to have been admitted by philosophers of all sects and ages. See Categor. c. 2. Metaphys. 1. vii. c. 1. De Cœlo, 1. iii. c. 1.

they acquire a signification either from being associated to one word, or else to many. If to one word alone, then, as they can do no more than in some manner define or determine, they may justly for that reason be called definitives. If to many words at once, then, as they serve to no other purpose than to connect, they are called for that reason by the name of connectives.

And thus it is that all words whatever are either principals or accessories; or under other names, either significant from themselves, or significant by relation. If significant from themselves, they are either substantives or attributives; if significant by relation, they are either definitives or connectives. So that under one of these four species, substantives, attributives, definitives, and connectives, are all words, however different, in a manner included.

If any of these names seem new and unusual, we may introduce others more usual, by calling the substantives, nouns ; the attributives, verbs; the definitives, articles; and the connectives, conjunctions.

Should it be asked, what then becomes of pronouns, adverbs, prepositions, and interjections? the answer is, either they must be found included within the species above mentioned, or else must be admitted for so many species by themselves.

There were various opinions in ancient days, as to the number of these parts, or elements of speech.

Plato, in his Sophist, mentions only two, the noun and the verb. Aristotle mentions no more, where he treats of prepositions. Not that those acute philosophers were ignorant of the other parts, but they spoke with reference to logic or dialectic,3 considering the essence of speech as contained in these two, because these alone combined make a perfect assertive sentence, which none of the rest without them are able to effect. Hence, therefore, Aristotle, in his treatise of Poetry,' (where he was to lay down the elements of a more variegated speech,) adds the article and conjunction to the noun and verb, and so adopts the same parts with those established in this treatise. To Aristotle's

4 Vol. i. p. 261. edit. Ser. r De Interpr. c. 2, 3.

Partes igitur orationis sunt secundum dialecticos duæ, nomen et verbum; quia hæ solæ etiam per se conjunctæ plenam faciunt orationem; alias autem partes σvyKатηуоρhμатα, hoc est, consignificantia appellabant. Priscian. 1. ii. p. 574. edit. Putschii. Existit hic quædam quæstio, cur duo tantum, nomen et verbum, se (Aristoteles sc.) determinare promittat, cum plures partes orationis esse videantur. Quibus hoc dicendum est, tantum Aristotelem hoc libro diffinisse, quantum illi ad id, quod instituerat tractare, suffecit. Tractat namque de

simplici enuntiativa oratione, quæ scilicet hujusmodi est, ut junctis tantum verbis et nominibus componatur.-Quare superfluum est quærere, cur alias quoque, quæ videntur orationis partes, non proposuerit, qui non totius simpliciter orationis, sed tantum simplicis orationis instituit elementa partiri. Boetius in Libr. de Interpretat. p. 295. Apollonius, from the above principles, elegantly calls the noun and verb, và quyʊxóTara μéρN TOû λóYov, "the most animated parts of speech." De Syntaxi, 1. i. c. 3. p. 24. See also Plutarch. Quæst. Platon. p. 1009.

Poet. cap. 20.

authority (if indeed better can be required) may be added that also of the elder Stoics."

The latter Stoics, instead of four parts made five, by dividing the noun into the appellative and proper. Others increased the number, by detaching the pronoun from the noun; the participle and adverb from the verb; and the preposition from the conjunction. The Latin grammarians went further, and detached the interjection from the adverb, within which by the Greeks it was always included, as a species.

We are told indeed by Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Quintilian, that Aristotle, with Theodectes, and the more early writers, held but three parts of speech, the noun, the verb, and the conjunction. This, it must be owned, accords with the Oriental tongues, whose grammars (we are told') admit no other. But as to Aristotle, we have his own authority to assert the contrary, who not only enumerates the four species which we have adopted, but ascertains them each by a proper definition."

To conclude: the subject of the following chapters will be a distinct and separate consideration of the noun, the verb, the article, and the conjunction; which four, the better (as we apprehend) to express their respective natures, we choose to call substantives, attributives, definitives, and connectives.

CHAPTER IV.

CONCERNING SUBSTANTIVES, PROPERLY SO CALLED.

SUBSTANTIVES are all those principal words which are significant of substances, considered as substances.

The first sort of substances are the natural, such as animal, vegetable, man, oak.

There are other substances of our own making. Thus, by giving a figure not natural to natural materials, we create such substances, as house, ship, watch, telescope, &c.

For this we have the authority of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, De Struct. Orat. sect. 2. whom Quintilian follows, Inst. l. i. c. 4. Diogenes Laertius and Priscian make them always to have admitted five parts. See Priscian, as before, and Laertius, 1. vii. segm. 57.

See the places quoted in the note immediately preceding.

Antiquissima eorum est opinio, qui tres classes faciunt. Estque hæc Arabum quoque sententia-Hebræi quoque (qui, cum Arabes grammaticam scribere desinerent, artem

eam demum scribere cœperunt, quod ante annos contigit circiter quadringentos) Hebræi, inquam, hac in re secuti sunt magistros suos Arabes.-Immo vero trium classium numerum aliæ etiam Orientis linguæ retinent. Dubium, utrum ea in re Orientales imitati sunt antiquos Græcorum, an hi potius secuti sunt Orientalium exemplum. Utut est, etiam veteres Græcos tres tantum partes agnovisse, non solum autor est Dionysius, &c. Voss. de Analog. 1. i. c. 1. See also Sanctii Minerv. 1. i. c. 2.

2 Sup. p. 126, note s.

Again, by a more refined operation of our mind alone, we abstract any attribute from its necessary subject, and consider it apart, devoid of its dependence. For example, from body we abstract to fly; from surface, the being white; from soul, the being temperate.

And thus it is we convert even attributes into substances, denoting them on this occasion by proper substantives, such as flight, whiteness, temperance; or else by others more general, such as motion, colour, virtue. These we call abstract substances ; the second sort we call artificial.

Now all those several substances have their genus, their species, and their individuals. For example, in natural substances, animal is a genus; man, a species; Alexander, an individual. In artificial substances, edifice is a genus; palace, a species; the Vatican, an individual. In abstract substances, motion is a genus; flight, a species; this flight or that flight are individuals.

As therefore, every genus 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 and entire animal;) and as 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;) hence it is that every genus, though one, is multiplied into many; and every species, though one, is also multiplied into many, by reference to those beings which are their proper subordinates. Since then no individual has any such subordinates, it can never in strictness be considered as many, and so is truly an individual as well in nature as in name.

From these principles it is, that words following the nature and genius of things, such substantives admit of number as denote genera or species; while those which denote individuals," in strictness admit it not.

a This is what Plato seems to have expressed in a manner somewhat mysterious, when he talks of μίαν ἰδέαν διὰ πολλῶν, ἑνὸς ἑκάστου κειμένου χωρίς, πάντη διατεταμένην, καὶ πολλὰς, ἑτέρας ἀλλήλων, ὑπὸ μιᾶς ἔξωθεν περιεχομένας. Sophist. p. 253. edit. Serrani. For the common definition of genus and species, see the Isagoge, or Introduction of Porphyry to Aristotle's Logic.

bYet sometimes individuals have plurality or number, from the causes following. In the first place, the individuals of the human race are so large a multitude, even in the smallest nation, that it would be difficult to invent a new name for every new-born individual. Hence then instead of one only being called Marcus, and one only Antonius, it happens that many are

called Marcus and many called Antonius; and thus it is the Romans had their plurals, Marci and Antonii, as we in later days have our Marks and our Anthonies. Now the plurals of this sort may be well called accidental, because it is merely by chance that the names coincide.

There seems more reason for such plurals, as the Ptolemies, Scipios, Catos, or (to instance in modern names) 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.

A third cause which contributed to make proper names become plural, was the high character or eminence of some one individual, whose name became afterwards a

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