ΕΠΕΑ ΠΤΕΡΟΕΝΤΑ, &c.

CHAP. VI.

OF ADJECTIVES.

F. YOU imagine then that you have thus set aside the doctrine of abstraction.

Will it be unreasonable to ask you, What are these adjectives and participles by which

you

you think have atchieved this feat? And first, What is an adjective? I dare not call it noun adjective: for Dr. Lowth tells us, pag. 41, "Adjectives are very improperly called nouns, for they are not the "names of things."

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And Mr. Harris (Hermes, book 1, chap. 10.) says...." "Grammarians have been led into that "strange absurdity of ranging adjectives with

nouns, and separating them from verbs; though "they are homogeneous with respect to verbs, as "both sorts denote attributes: they are heteroge"neous with respect to nouns, as never properly denoting substances."

You see, Harris and Lowth concur, that Adjectives are not the names of things; that they never properly denote substances. But they differ in their consequent arrangement. Lowth appoints the adjective to a separate station by itself amongst the parts of speech; and yet expels the participle from amongst them, though it had long figured

there whilst Harris classes verbs, participles, and adjectives together under one head, viz. attributives.(m)

H. These gentlemen differ widely from some of their ablest predecessors. Scaliger, Wilkins, Wallis, Sanctius, Scioppius, and Vossius, considerable and justly respected names, tell us far otherwise.

Scaliger, lib. 4, cap. 91. "Nihil dissert con“cretum ab abstracto, nisi modo significationis, non significatione."

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Wilkins, part 1, chap. 3, sect. 8. The true

genuine sense of a noun adjective will be fixed "to consist in this; that it imports this general "notion, of pertaining to."

Wallis, pag. 92. “ Adjectivum respectivum est “nihil aliud quam ipsa vox substantiva, adjectivé posita."

Pag. 127. "Quodlibet substantivum adjectivè positum degenerat in adjectivum.”

Pag. 129. "Ex substantivis fiunt adjectiva copiæ, additâ terminatione y &c.

F. I beg you proceed no farther with your authorities. Can you suppose that Harris and Lowth

(m) Harris should have called them either attributes or attributables. But having terminated the names of his three other classes (substantive, definitive, connective) in ive, he judged it more regular to terminate the title of this class also in ive: having no notion whatever that all common terminations have a meaning; and probably supposing them to be (as the etymologists ignorantly term them) mere protractiones vocum: as if words were wiredrawn, and that it was a mere matter of taste in the writer, to use indifferently either one termination or another at his pleasure.

were unacquainted with them: or that they have not read much more than all which you can produce upon the subject, or probably have ever seen?

H. I doubt it not in the least. But the health of the mind, as of the body, depends more upon the digestion than the swallow. Away then with authorities and let us consider their reasons. They have given us but one; and that one, depending merely upon their own unfounded assertion, viz. That adjectives are not the names of things. Let us try that.

I think you will not deny that gold and brass and silk, is each of them the name of a thing, and denotes a substance. If then I say....A gold-ring, a brasstube, a silk-string; here are the substantives adjectivè posita, yet names of things, and denoting

substances.

If again I say....a golden ring, a brazen tube, a silken string; Do gold and brass and silk, cease to be the names of things, and cease to denote substances; because, instead of coupling them with ring, tube and string by a hyphen thus-, I couple them to the same words, by adding the termination en to each of them? Do not the adjectives (which I have made such by the added termination) golden, brazen, silken, (uttered by themselves) convey to the hearer's mind and denote the same things as gold, brass, and silk? Surely the termination en takes nothing away from the substantives gold, brass, and silk, to which it is united as a termination and as surely it adds nothing to their signifi. eation, but this single circumstance, viz. That

gold, brass, and silk are designated, by this termination en, to be joined to some other substantive. And we shall find hereafter that en and the equivalent adjective terminations ed and ig (our modern y) convey all three, by their own intrinsic meaning, that designation and nothing else; for they mean give, add, join. And this single added circumstance of "pertaining to," is (as Wilkins truly tells us) the only difference between a substantive and an adjective; between gold and golden, &c.

So the adjectives wooden and woolen convey precisely the same ideas, are the names of the same things, denote the same substances; as the substantives wood and wool: and the terminating en only puts them in a condition to be joined to some other substantives; or rather, gives us notice to expect some other substantives to which they are to be joined. And this is the whole mystery of simple adjectives. (We speak not here of compounds, ful, ous, ly, &c.)

An adjective is the name of a thing which is directed to be joined to some other name of a thing. ....And the substantive and adjective so joined, are frequently convertible, without the smallest change of meaning: As we may say....a perverse nature, or, a natural perversity.

F. Mr. Harris is short enough upon this subject; but you are shorter. He declares it "no way diffi"cult to understand the nature of a participle: and "easy" to understand the nature of an adjective. But to get at them you must according to him, travel to them through the verb.

He says, (pag. 184.)....." The nature of verbs. being understood, that of participles is no way "difficult. Every complete verb is expressive of "an attribute; of time; and of an assertion. Now "if we take away the assertion, and thus destroy "the verb, there will remain the attribute, and the "time, which make the essence of the participle. "Thus take away the assertion from the verb Tpaper, "writeth, and there remains the participle Ipapav2 writing; which (without the assertion) denotes "the same attribute, and the same time."

Again, (pag. 186.)...." The nature of verbs and "participles being understood, that of adjectives "becomes easy. A verb implies both an attribute, "and time, and an assertion. A participle implies only an attribute and time. And an adjective I only implies an attribute."

H. Harris's method of understanding easily the nature of participles and adjectives, resembles very much that of the wag who undertook to teach the sons of Crispin how to make a shoe and a slipper easily in a minute. But he was more successful than Harris: for he had something to cut away, the boot. Whereas Harris has absolutely nothing to be so served. For the verb does not denote any time; nor does it imply any assertion. No single word can. Till one single thing can be found to be a couple, one single word cannot make an adsertion or an ad-firmation: for there is joining in that operation; and there can be no junction of one thing.

F. Is not the Latin ibo an assertion?