On Definitions. 237 
are employed in the case of verbs to denote the varieties of time in 
which the event may have taken place. Other changes are intro- 
duced to express the modes of the event or action, whether affirma- 
tive, or conditional, or dependent on a condition, or imperative, or 
interrogative, or whatever other peculiarity it may possess. So also, 
in many languages, changes are made to express the different persons 
of the verb. The agent of the verb is distinguished from the object 
of the action, and the distinction may be made either by the form of 
the word, or by its position.* 
All these distinctions, and many others though introduced by cus- 
tom alone, and without any view to ulterior advantages, are of the 
nature of definitions, and serve the purposes which definitions always 
serve, to abbreviate language, and to render it precise.t 
The same distinctions are made, though in a different way, but 
for the same purpose, and by analogous means, in the language of 
signs, employed in teaching the deaf and dumb. In this interesting 
and most humane science, in which signs alone, addressed to the 
eye, are used instead of words, it is manifest, that no progress could 
be made without the utmost precision and uniformity in the use of 
the signs employed. The intention is therefore, no doubt, fixed by 
such explanation as amounts to the nature of a definition, in what- 
ever way that explanation is conveyed; and such changes or modi- 
fications are introduced into the use of this sign, as are fitted to 
make it capable of conveying the same variations of the idea, as are 
conveyed in ordinary language by the grammatical distinctions, or 
the definitions that have been mentioned. 
‘Having ascertained that these distinctions are, in all languages, 
even in that of signs, of the nature of definitions, let us shortly con- 
* Changes in the form of words are adopted to express the varying extent of 
a quality, and are commonly named the degrees of comparison, whether in adjec- 
tives or adverbs. Some conjunctions are employed to ‘express a Continna aay of 
er rae others = a some ers causation, 
and duction lables are caus placed at the: + eae of words, 
to render affirmatives negative, and the contrary. 
The grammar of any particular language, consists of neither more nor less 
long rather to the science of universal grammar, as being such as are applicable to 
alllanguages. Those now under consideration, se the grammar of any 
Particular language. Hence appears the absurdity 0 he prejudices, which some 
ovators rules; these being the philo- 
sophical principles of the language of which they treat. — 
