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THE

PHILOSOPHY

OF

RHETORIC.

BOOK SECOND.

THE FOUNDATIONS AND ESSENTIAL PROPERTIES OF

ELOCUTION.

CHAP. I.

The Nature and Characters of the Use which gives Law to Language,

ELOQUENCE hath always been considered, and very justly, as having a particular connection with language. It is the intention of eloquence, to convey our sentiments into the minds of others, in order to produce a certain effect upon them. Language is the only vehicle by which this conveyance can be made. The art of speaking then is not less necessary to the orator, than the art of thinking. Without the latter,

The nature and characters of the use which gives law to language.

the former could not have existed.

Without the for

mer, the latter would be ineffective. Every tongue whatever is founded in use or custom,

-Whose arbitrary sway

Words and the forms of language must abey *. FRANCIS.

LANGUAGE is purely a species of fashion (for this holds equally of every tongue) in which, by the general, but tacit consent of the people of a particular state or country, certain sounds come to be appropriated to certain things, as their signs, and certain ways of inflecting and combining those sounds come to be established, as denoting the relations which subsist among the things signified.

give law to the

It is not the business of grammar, as some critics seem preposterously to imagine, to fashions which regulate our speech.

On the contrafrom that alone,

ry, from its conformity to these, and it derives all its authority and value. For, what is the grammar of any language? It is no other than a collection of general observations methodically digested, and comprising all the modes previously and independently established by which the significations, derivations, and combinations of words in that language, are ascertained. It is of no consequence here to what

Usus

Quem penes arbitrium est et jus et norma loquendi.

HOR. De Arte Poet.

The nature and characters of the use which gives law to language.

causes originally these modes or fashions owe their existence, to imitation, or reflection, to affectation, or to caprice; they no sooner obtain and become general, than they are laws of the language, and the grammarian's only business is to note, collect, and methodise them. Nor does this truth concern only those more comprehensive analogies or rules, which affect whole classes of words; such as nouns, verbs, and the other parts of speech; but it concerns every individual word, in the inflecting or the combining of which, a particular mode hath prevailed. Every single anomaly, therefore, though departing from the rule assigned to the other words of the same class, and on that account called an exception, stands on the same basis, on which the rules of the tongue are founded, custom having prescribed for it a separate rule *.

THE truth of this position hath never, for ought I can remember, been directly contraverted by any body, yet it is certain, that both critics and grammarians often argue in such a way as is altogether inconsistent with it. What, for example, shall we make of that complaint of Doctor Swift, "that our language, in many instances, offends against every part of

gram

* Thus, in the two verbs call and shall, the second person singular of the former is callest, agreeably to the general rule, the second person singular of the latter is shalt, agreeably to a particular rule affecting that verb. To say shallest for shalt, would be as much a barbarism, though according to the general rule, as to say calt for callest, which is according to no rule.

66

The nature and characters of the use which gives law to language.

mar *??? Or what could the Doctor's notion of grammar be, when he expressed himself in this manner? Some notion, possibly, he had of grammar in the abstract, an universal archetype by which the particular grammars of all different tongues ought to be regulated. If this was his meaning, I cannot say whether he is in the right or in the wrong in this accusation. I acknowledge myself to be entirely ignorant of this ideal grammar; nor can I form a conjecture where its laws are to be learnt. One thing, indeed, every smatterer in philosophy will tell us, that there can be no natural connexion between the sounds of any language, and the things signified, or between the modes of inflection and combination, and the relations they are intended to express. Perhaps he meant the grammar of some other language; if so, the charge was certainly true, but not to the purpose, since we can say, with equal truth, of every language, that it offends against the grammar of every other language whatsoever. If he meant the English grammar, I would ask, whence has that grammar derived its laws? If, from general use, (and I cannot conceive another origin) then it must be owned, that there is a general use in that language, as well as in others; and it were absurd to accuse the language which is purely what is conformable to general use in speaking and writing, as offending against general use. But if he meant to say, that there is no fixed, established, or general use

* Letter to the Lord High Treasurer, &c.

The nature and characters of the use which gives law to language.

in the language, that it is quite irregular, he hath been very unlucky in his manner of expressing himself. Nothing is more evident, than that there is no transgression. In that case, he ought to have said, that it is not susceptible of grammar; which, by the way, would not have been true of English, or indeed of any the most uncultivated language on the earth.

It is easy then to assign the reason, why the justhess of the complaint, as Doctor Lowth observes *, has never yet been questioned; it is purely, because, not being understood, it hath never been minded. But if, according to this ingenious gentleman, the words, our language, have, by a new kind of trope, been used to denote those who speak and write English, and no more hath been intended than to signify, that our best speakers, and most approved authors, frequently offend against the rules of grammar, that is, against the general use of the language; I shall not here enter on a discussion of the question. Only let us rest in these as fixed principles, that use, or the custom of speaking, is the sole original standard of conversation, as far as it regards the expression, and the custom of writing is the sole standard of style; that the latter comprehends the former, and something more; that to the tribunal of use, as to the supreme authority, and, consequently, in every grammatical controversy, the last resort, we are entitled to

* Preface to his Introduction to English Gramma.
VOL. I.
T

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