Chap. IX. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 155 



words all the things I have mentioned, exifting in nature, but we 

 muft exprefs likewife all the things invented by men, which make a 

 kind of world of art. And when words are invented, denoting fuch 

 an infinite number of things, they muft be arranged and put toge- 

 ther in fuch a way as to form fpeech, and to convey the meaning of 

 the fpeaker to his hearers. 



How many words there are in a compleat language of art, fuch 

 as the Greek, I believe no man knows, as they never have been 

 numbered, and I believe could hardly be numbered, though it 

 is faid that Varro numbered the words in Latin, and made them to 

 be five millions. But one thing is certain, that fuch a prodigious 

 number of words never could be comprehended in the memory, nor 

 be applied to ufe, if they were all unconnected with one another. It 

 was, therefore, of abfolute neceflity that they fhould be connect- 

 ed with one another, fo that the knowledge of one fhould lead 

 to the knowledge of fcvcral more. This is done by the three 

 great arts of language. Derivation, Compofition, and FleCtion, 

 which connect words together both in found and fenfe, and by 

 that means prevent fuch a multiplication of words as would make 

 them incomprehenfible in the memory, and therefore unfit for ufe. 

 Of this we may judge, if we were to fiippofe that every word, 

 derived, in a language of art, from another, were to be exprefled 

 by a word quite different in the found; and if the words compound- 

 ed were to be exprelTed by founds quite different from the words 

 which compofe them ; and if the cafes of nouns, and the tenfes of 

 verbs expreffing times, numbers, and pcrfons, were all to be expref- 

 led by words having no connection with one another: — And as the 

 verb expreffes pafTion as well as aCtion, and therefore has both an ac- 

 tive and a paffive voice, (and in Greek likewife a middle voice), if 

 all the tenfes in thefe voices, with their times, perfons, and numbers, 

 were to be expreffed in the fame way, even the words denoting 



U 2 verbs 



