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    and the professor is laughed to scorn . —This will be found the exact parallel of Mr . Hamilton . "I now proceed to the second head of his system , thus contained iit frfa ovm words : ' I have said that each word is translated by its one sole , uadetiating meaning , assuming as an incontrovertible principle in all languages , that , with very few exceptions , each word has one meaning only , asid can usually be rendered correctly into another by one word only , whici one word should serve for its representative at all times and all occasion */

    " You found it necessary , Sir , to disguise the strange doctrine advanced by the author in this paragraph . ( Mr . Hamilton / * you say , ' has expressed himself loosely : but he , perhaps , means no more than to say that in school translations , the metaphysical meaning should never be adopted , when the word can be rendered by its primary signification . * If you thought proper to dispense critical justice with impartiality on tliis occasion , you would have remarked that the man who coula advance a position so absurd , must be a total stranger to the theory of language , and never could have submitted in English or Greek a single sentence to 8 correct analysis .

    " The meaning of word * depends on the association of ideas ; and to say that each word has but one sole idea , is to say that the idea at first annexed to a term cannot be altered by subsequent associations . All associations are in continued flux ; and the same word , as it is associated with different words in different connexions * must hence borrow a new shade which modifies its primary signification /'—Pp .

    4—7-After enumerating several striking instances in which the Hamiltonian plan imprints nonsense on the mind , with as much labour as need be used to give sound . and rational impressions , Dr . Jones proceeds : " Remarks like these might be much further pursued : I give them as specimens of what an intelligent master would furnish his pupils , as they proceed in construing Greek . They form a criterion whereb y to judge of Mr . Hamilton ' s translation ; and they warrant the three following conclusions :

    first , that to form a Key like his , no other qualification is necessary than an ability , by means of a dictionary or by the help of the common version , to annex an English word to the corresponding word in the Greek Testament ; —secondly , that Mr . Hamilton ' s plan is improperly called a system : he should rather have called it an anti-system , as it is constructed on the absence of every general principle , which renders the study of language rational , instructive and agreeable . It appears , indeed , from his own words , that he considers language as not founded m reason ; and he has done all that he could , instead of calling forthto extinguish the rational faculties in the acquisition of it i vw wn ^« k w »»»»» j »» i " ^ r * •¦¦« # ii »« + f + iasmavavm

    , . ^^ rm v « - * a - *» r ^» " " ^ M ^ w ^ y * m ** ns *>* ***** w * # v vwvu ^^* » v » " My third conclusion is , that while Mr . Hamilton ' s method exercises the memony alone , he has , by studied perversion , rendered what is to be stored in the memory most irksome and repulsive . If he thought fit to present his scholars in the form of a Key with a jargon at once uncouth , ungrammatical , and scarcely intelligible , he ought as a competent master to have supplied them with some intermediate ideas , by which they might convert it into sense and grammar . "—Pp . 14 , 16 .

    He thence proceeds to discuss some of the positions of the Edinburgh Reviewers , whose object it appears to be " to discourage the use of the dictionary as a wretched waste of time , and to recommend literal translations as a great saving of time ; " not , however , espousing the cause of Mr . Hamilton ' s versions . After observing upon the use and abuse of a dictionary under a judicious instructor , an * i the necessity of teaching a boy to follow the significations of a word from its primitive , through its various derivative senses , as , an exercise for his inductive and reasoning faculties , he adds , " I will now suppose the Tyro , of whom I speak ^ to begin Greek , and have ,

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    \ Y $ Review . —Hamiltonian System .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1827, page 114, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1793/page/34/