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ЕПЕА ПТEPOENTА 8.

CHAP. VI.

OF ADJECTIVES.

F.

YOU imagine then that you have thus fet aside the doctrine

of Abstraction.

Will it be unreasonable to ask you, What are these Adjectives and Participles by which you think you have aţchieved this feat? And firft, 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.) fays-" Gram"marians have been led into that strange abfurdity of ranging Adjectives with Nouns, and feparating them from Verbs; though they are homogeneous with respect to Verbs, as both "forts denote Attributes: they are heterogeneous with refpect "to Nouns, as never properly denoting Subftances."

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You fee, Harris and Lowth concur, that Adjectives are not the names of things; that they never properly denote fubftances. But they differ in their confequent arrangement. Lowth appoints the Adjective to a feparate ftation by itself amongst the parts of speech; and yet expels the Participle from amongst them, though it had long figured there: whilft Harris claffes Verbs, Participles, and Adjectives together under one head, viz. Attributives *.

H.

Thefe Gentlemen differ widely from fome of their ableft predeceffors. Scaliger, Wilkins, Wallis, Sanctius, Scioppius, and Voffius, confiderable and juftly refpected names, tell us far otherwife.

Scaliger, lib. 4. cap. 91. "Nihil differt concretum ab abfracto, nifi modo fignificationis, non fignificatione."

Wilkins, Part 1. chap. 3. Sect. 8. "The true genuine fenfe "of a Noun Adjective will be fixed to confift in this; that it "imports this general notion, of pertaining to."

* Harris fhould have called them either Attributes or Attributables. But having terminated the names of his three other claffes (Subftantive, Definitive, Connective) in Ive, he judged it more regular to terminate the title of this clafs alfo in Ive: having no notion whatever that all common terminations have a meaning; and probably fuppofing them to be (as the etymologists ignorantly term them) mere protractiones vocum : as if words were wire-drawn, and that it was a mere matter of Tafte in the writer, to ufe indifferently either one termination or another at his pleasure.

Wallis,

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Wallis, pag. 92. "Adjectivum refpectivum eft nihil aliud quam ipfa vox fubftantiva, adjectivé pofita."

Pag. 127. "Quodlibet fubftantivum adjectivè pofitum de"generat in adjectivum."

Pag. 129. "Ex fubftantivis fiunt Adjectiva copiæ, additâ terminatione y &c."

Sanctius,

F.

I beg you to proceed no farther with your authorities. Car you fuppofe that Harris and Lowth were unacquainted with them or that they had not read much more than all which you can produce upon the fubject, or probably have ever seen?

H.

I doubt it not in the leaft. 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 confider their reasons. They have given us but one; and that one, depending merely upon their own unfounded affertion, 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 fubftance. If then I fay-A Gold-ring, a Brafs-tube, A Silk-ftring: Here are the Subftantives adjectivè pofita, yet names of things, and denoting fubftances.

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If again I fay-A Golden ring, A Brazen tube, A Silken ftring; Do Gold and Brafs and Silk, ceafe to be the names of things, and ceafe to denote fubftances; because, instead of coupling them with ring, tube and firing by a Hyphen thus I couple them to the fame words by adding the termination en to each of them? Do not the Adjectives (which I have made fuch by the added termination) Golden, Brazen, Silken, (uttered by themfelves) convey to the hearer's mind and denote the fame things as Gold, Brafs, and Silk? Surely the termination en takes nothing away from the substantives Gold, Brafs, and Silk, to which it is united as a termination: and as furely it adds nothing to their fignification, but this single circumstance, víz. That Gold, Brafs, and Silk are defignated, by this termination en, to be joined to fome other fubftantive. And we fhall find hereafter that en and the equivalent adjective terminations ed and ig (our modern y) convey all three, by their own intrinfic meaning, that defignation and nothing elfe; for they mean Give, Add, Join. And this fingle added circumftance of pertaining to," is (as Wilkins truly tells us) the only difference between a substantive and an adjective; between Gold and Golden, &c.

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So the Adjectives Wooden and Woolen convey precisely the fame ideas, are the names of the fame things, denote the same fubftances; as the fubftantives 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 fome other fubftantives to which they are to be joined. And this is the whole mystery of fimple 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 fome other name of a thing. And the substantive and adjective fo joined, are frequently convertible, without the smallest change of meaning: As we may fay-A perverse nature, or, A natural perversity..

F.

Mr. Harris is fhort enough upon this fubject; but you are fhorter. He declares it "no way difficult to understand the nature of a Participle: and " eafy" to underftand the nature of an Adjective. But to get at them you must according to him, travel to them through the Verb.

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He fays, (pag. 184.)—“ The nature of Verbs being underftood, that of Participles is no way difficult. Every complete Verb is expreffive of an Attribute; of Time; and of an Affertion. Now if we take away the Affertion, and thus "deftroy the Verb, there will remain the Attribute, and the "Time, which make the effence of the Participle. Thus take

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away the Affertion from the Verb gaps, Writeth, and there "remains the Participle reagov, Writing; which (without the Affertion) denotes the fame Attribute, and the fame Time."

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Again, (pag. 186.)-" The nature of Verbs and Participles being understood, that of Adjectives, becomes eafy. A Verb implies both an Attribute, and Time, and an Affertion. A "Participle implies only an Attribute and Time. And an Adjective only implies an Attribute."

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H. Harris's

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