In all probability the Abbé de l'Epée borrowed his method of teaching the prepofitions to his deaf and dumb fcholars from this notion of Wilkins.

"Tout ce que je puis regarder directement en Face, est "Devant moi : tout ce que je ne peux voir fans retourner “la tête de l'autre côte, est Derriere moi.

"S'agiffoit-il defaire entendre qu'une action étoit paffée ? "Il jettoit au hafard, deux ou trois fois fa main du côte "de fon epaule. Enfin s'il defiroit annoncer une action "future, il faifoit avancer fa main droite directement de"vant lui."

Des fourds et muets.

2 Edit. pag. 54.

You will not expect me to waste a word on the prepofitions touching, concerning, regarding, respecting, relating to, faving, except, excepting, according to, granting, allowing, confidering, notwithstanding, neighbouring, &c. nor yet on the compound prepofitions In-to, Un-to, Un-till, Out-of, Through-out, From-off, &c..

B..

I certainly fhould not, if you had explained all the fimple terms of which the latter are compounded. I ac-knowledge

6

knowledge that the meaning and etymology of fome of your prepofitions are fufficiently plain and fatisfactory : and of the others I fhall not permit myself to entertain a decided opinion till after a more mature confideration. Pedetentim progredi, was our old favourite motto and caution, when first we began together in our early days to confider and converfe upon philofophical fubjects; and, having no fanciful system of my own to mislead me, I am not yet prepared to relinquish it. But there ftill remain five fimple prepofitions, of which you have not yet taken the smallest notice. How do you account for IN, Out, on,

OFF, and AT.

H.

Oh! As for thefe, I muft fairly answer you with Martin Luther," Je les defendrois aisément devant le Pape, mais "je ne fçais comment les juftifier devant le diable." With the common run of Etymologists, I should make no bad figure by repeating what others have faid concerning them; but I despair of satisfying you with any thing they have advanced or I can offer, because I cannot altogether fatisfy myfelf. The explanation and etymology of these words require a degree of knowledge in all the antient northern languages, and a skill in the application of that knowledge, which I am very far from affuming: and, though I am

almoft

almost persuaded by fome of my own conjectures concerning them, I am not willing, by an apparently forced and far-fetched derivation, to juftify your imputation of etymological legerdemain. Nor do I think Nor do I think any farther inquiry neceffary to justify my conclufion concerning the prepofitions; having, in my opinion, fully intitled myself to the application of that axiom of M. de Broffes (Art. 215.) —“ La preuve connue d'un grand nombre de mots d'une "efpece, doit etablir un precepte generale fur les autres "mots de meme efpece, à l'origine defquels on ne peut "plus remonter. On doit en bonne logique juger des "chofes que l'on ne peut connoitre, par celles de même "efpece qui font bien connues; en les ramenant à un "principe dont l'evidence fe fait appercevoir par tout où "la vue peut s'etendre."

* In the Gothic and Anglo-faxon INNA, inna, means Uterus, vifcera, venter, interior pars corporis. (Inna, inne, is alfo in a fecondary fenfe used for Cave, Cell, Cavern.) And there are fome etymological reasons which make it not improbable that our derives from a word originally meaning Skin. I am inclined to believe that IN and OUT come originally from two Nouns meaning thofe two parts of the body.

ΕΠΕΑ ΠΤΕΡΟΕΝΤΑ, &c.

CHAP. X.

OF ADVERBS.

B.

THE firft general divifion of words (and that which has been and still is almost universally held by Grammarians) is into Declinable and Indeclinable. All the Indeclinables except the Adverb, we have already confidered. And though Mr. Harris has taken away the Adverb from its old station amongst the other Indeclinables, and has, by a fingular whim of his own, made it a fecondary clafs of Attributives, or (as he calls them) Attributes of Attributes; yet neither does he nor any other Grammarian seem to have any clear notion of its nature and character.

B. Johnson* and Wallis and all others, I think, feem to confound it with the Prepofitions, Conjunctions and Interjections.

*

Prepositions are a peculiar kind of Adverbs, and ought to be re«ferred thither," B. Johnson's Grammar.