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received the accumulated sanction of the learned from that day to the present . In general , what we want in reading ancient authors , is a more ready apprehension of their sense ; when once suggested to our minds , its own propriety warrants it genuine . On the whole , therefore , I can by no means assent to Dr . Jones ' s assertion in his
Preface , that the study of the accents " does not bring in return the smallest advantage to the learner . " I have no hesitation in avowing my opinion , that the knowledge and practical use of the accents , will do more towards
forming a correct and elegant * Greek scholar , than all the acquaintance with Hebrew , Arabic and Syriac , that ever was acquired ; nor do I think it possible that any one can become a finished and able Greek scholar without
this knowledge . A hundred proprieties and elegancies of the language will inevitably escape him . The plan of retaining the circumflex without the acute appears to me
particularly unfortunate : the economy of the circumflex depends essentially on that of the acute , and thus shorn of its kindred , it appears but as one of the * discerpta membra" of a mangled system .
Before I close , I must acknowledge that I am indebted for many of the foregoing remarks and authorities to Foster ' s Essay on Accent and Quantity , an excellent work , to which I with pleasure refer the reader for fuller information . In one point , I
think this author not quite correct : it is when be considers English verse as essentially founded on quantity like the ancient : but I have explained my own view of this point already . Mr .
Foster observes , in conclusion , that the Greek language , treated as it has been in this matter , might adopt the complaint of Philomela in the epigram : YXcocraccv E { a . vjv tOEpicrcrE , kocl ecrt > Eo ~ £ i / 'JEXXccScc ipcoyyjv . T . F . B .
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Sir , March 23 , 1823 . AB OUT two years ago there appeared in the Monthly Repository , [ XVI . 88—101 , ] "An Inquiry respecting Private Property , and the Authority and Perpetuity of the Apostolic Institution of a Community of Goods . " Having long been a great admirer and humble supporter of the
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plan of Mr . Owen , of New Lanark in so far as regards its arrangements for facilitating mutual and voluntary co-operation , I was delighted to find that the scheme was advocated on
Christian principles by a gentleman so admirably qualified for the task , as the writer of the Essay above alluded to ; and I fondly hoped , that , having been once started , a subject so interesting and important , in every point
of view , would have undergone a thorough discussion . But although I have been hitherto disappointed in this expectation , I do not yet despair of seeing a portion of your work devoted to such a discussion , so as to lead us
to some distinct conclusion as to the merits of the plan . Ever since I turned my attention to the subject , it has appeared to me , that the enlightened body of Christians among whom your Repository circulates , are , of all others , the best
qualified to appreciate the force of Mr . Owen ' s arguments , and to reduce his theory to practice . He has given great offence to the religious world by a proposition to which the great majority of Unitarians will have no difficulty in subscribing ; namely , " that
the character is formed for and not by the individual . " This , you are aware , is saying no more than is maintained by the advocates of the doctrine of Philosophical Necessity . To them , therefore , it can give no of - fence , nor excite the slightest feeling of alarm for the stability of the
Christian religion . Nor , indeed , ought our Calvinist brethren to take offence at an axiom which lies at the root of their system , and which President Edwards , one of their ablest writers , has irrefragably defended in an elaborate piece of argumentation . It must ,
however , be confessed that , in so doing , he has exposed to the full light of day the horrid deformity of that dogma , which dooms to eternal misery vast numbers of human beings who are precisely what their Maker determined that they should be . W ith this gross inconsistency we have no
concern . But I really do ' not see why any man , who has the good of his fellowcreatures at heart , should reject the plan of Mr . Owen , on account of any supposed error in his metaphysical notions . The practical tendency of
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450 Mr . Owen ' s Plan .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1823, page 450, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1787/page/18/
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