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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
k e frouW have been equally right had he said that the relative pronoun is the Article . The terms relative and article jcem both to have originated in just conception . Your Correspondent remarks : —
« thou gh it be granted that o was originally a pronoun , it is no more a pronoun now than it is a verb or ' adfect ive . " Dugald Stewart employs similar language in his remarks upon the Diversions of Purley , which I do
not wonder at ; but I would submit to the re-consideration of your Correspondent , whether such language be suited to rigorous inquiry and just conception . The question of any importance , is not what technical names have
been applied to o , but what it is . What is its nature or use ? Will your Correspondent have the goodness to explain what a pronoun or a verb is ? I can assure him the question is not captious , for if he can give a simpler , more intelligible and satisfactory account of these matters than I have endeavoured to
give , he shall have my best and sincerest thanks . " The Monthly Reviewer ( it k said ) has justly maintained the superiority of the English over the Greek in precision , by the means of the indefinite—an — in combination with
the definitive . " But I suspect if the Monthly Reviewer were asked this Simple question—what is the definite or what is the indefinite article ? he would not give a very ready or very
intelligible * answer . What is called the definite article has no necessary connection With definiteness ; and what is absurdly called the indefinite article is merely a varied spelling and pronunciation of the numeral one .
There is a gentleman with whose remarks on these subjects I should be extremely glad to see your pages enriched , for I consider his understanding of a much higher order than that of either the mere linguist or the mere metaphysician . Henas only to think as freejy , clearly and profoundly on philology , as on Philosophical Necessit
y , to render important services to true fr ^ nrmar and sound logic . He has ^ ith much candour ( I ' ought perhaps to toy generosity after the poignancy of » j > me of my strictures" ) acknowledged that I have successfully illustrated sev end obscure points ; and if he will fWnt oiu 'some of the more essential particulars wherein I may have faited
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in developing the principles of language satisfactorily , I trust that I * shall treat his remarks with becoming respect . He may have more reverence for scholastic authority than I can admire , but I feel confident that he will be at the trouble of understanding my meaning , though I fear much that some of my readers will resemble those alluded to in the following sentence : " When men have once acquiesced in untrue
opinions , and registered them as authentical records in their minds , if is no less impossible to speak intelligibly ( or convincingly ) to them , than to write legibly upon a paper already scribbled over . " Unfortunately for useful learning and true science , the
minds of many teachers are scribbled Over with school-boy nonsense ; but as the judicious Locke justly remarks : "It is not strange that methods of learning which scholars have been
accustomed to in their beginning and entrance upon the sciences , should influence them all their iive 3 , and be settled in their minds by an overruling reverence , especially if they be such as universal use has established . Learners
must at first be believers , and their master ' s rules having been once made axioms to them , it is no wonder they should keep that dignity , and , b y the authority they have once got , mislead those , who think it sufficient to excuse them , if they go out of their way in a well beaten tract . And when fashion
hath once established what folly began , custom makes it sacred , and it will be thought impudence or madness to contradict or question it . " If ! have not already occupied too much of the room allotted in the
Repository to communications of this nature , I should be glad to have some queries inserted in reference to a subject which has received some notice in your pages , hoping that some of your readers will be induced to reply to them .
What are the principal advantages and disadvantages of the different forms tof government P Wherein consists true national prosperity ? Is the doctrine of Malthus an insurmountable obstacle
to the perfectibility or improvableness to any great degree of human society ? In other words , are vice and misery necessary to keep population down to the level of the mean * gf subsistence r
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National Wealth and Social Institutions . 52 ff
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1816, page 529, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2456/page/29/
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