Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/123

 things should be observed, remembered, and made exactly to correspond. There is no human vigilance which multiplicity may not sometimes baffle, and minuteness sometimes elude. To most persons grammar seems a dry and difficult subject; but there is a disposition of mind, to which what is arduous, is for that very reason alluring. "Quo difficilius, hoc præclarius," says Cicero; "The more difficult, the more honourable." The merit of casting up a high-way in a rugged land, is proportionate not merely to the utility of the achievement, but to the magnitude of the obstacles to be overcome. The difficulties encountered in boyhood from the use of a miserable epitome and the deep impression of a few mortifying blunders made in public, first gave the author a fondness for grammar; circumstances having since favoured this turn of his genius, he has voluntarily pursued the study, with an assiduity which no man will ever imitate for the sake of pecuniary recompense.

CHAPTER X.

OF GRAMMATICAL DEFINITIONS.

"Scientiam autem nusquam esse censebant, nisi in animi motionibus atque rationibus: quâ de causâ definitiones rerum probabant, et has ad omnia, de quibus disceptabatur, adhibebant."--CICERONIS Academica, Lib. i, 9.

1. "The first and highest philosophy," says Puffendorf, "is that which delivers the most accurate and comprehensive definitions of things." Had all the writers on English grammar been adepts in this philosophy, there would have been much less complaint of the difficulty and uncertainty of the study. "It is easy," says Murray, "to advance plausible objections against almost every definition, rule, and arrangement of grammar."--Gram., 8vo, p. 59. But, if this is true, as regards his, or any other work, the reason, I am persuaded, is far less inherent in the nature of the subject than many have supposed.[64] Objectionable definitions and rules are but evidences of the ignorance and incapacity of him who frames them. And if the science of grammar has been so unskillfully treated that almost all its positions may be plausibly impugned, it is time for some attempt at a reformation of the code. The language is before us, and he who knows most about it, can best prescribe the rules which we ought to observe in the use of it. But how can we expect children to deduce from a few particulars an accurate notion of general principles and their exceptions, where learned doctors have so often faltered? Let the abettors of grammatical "induction" answer.

2. Nor let it be supposed a light matter to prescribe with certainty the principles of grammar. For, what is requisite to the performance? To know certainly, in the first place, what is the best usage. Nor is this all. Sense and memory must be keen, and tempered to retain their edge and hold, in spite of any difficulties which the subject may present. To understand things exactly as they are; to discern the differences by which they may be distinguished, and the resemblances by which they ought to be classified; to know, through the proper evidences of truth,