126 on the personal pronouns. Sept. 26, 



OJ^ cases. 



In some languages certain relations that subsist 

 between nouns or pronouns and other wsrds, arc de- 

 noted by a variation in the form of the aoun or pro- 

 noun, to which clafs of variations has been appropri- 

 ated the name of cases. In many languages no such 

 variation subsists with regard to nouns, as p:irticu- 

 cularlj the Englifh ; and in all the languages where 

 CASES have been adopted, the number oi cases is so 

 few as to perform very imperfectly the uses for 

 which they seem to have been adopted ; the highest 

 number of cases in any European laiiguage being 

 jja; *, whereas the relations that for want of these 

 come to be denoted by prepositions, amount to six 

 times that number at least. This variation, there- 

 fore, seems to be, for the most part, a very unefsen- 

 tial peculiarity of certain languages. 



There seems, however, to exist in nature an efsen- 

 tial reason for one variation, at least, in regard to 

 case ; and in respect to this particular circumstance 

 all languages, that I know, admit a variation in their 

 pronouns, even where the nouns do not. The object 

 denoted by the noun or pronoun, when considered as 

 connected with an active verb, may be viewed either 

 as active or as pafsive ; as the object from which the 

 energy proceeds, or as that on which it acts. This 

 distinction is real, and must subsist in all languages ; 

 though, from some unaccountable oversight, most 

 Jarguages admit of no distinction for the noun when 

 placed in these different circumstances, though in 



* And even these are so imperfectly dis:riminjted, that the dill inc. ion 

 is in sn^nv nouns more nominal than real. 



