180 



THE POPULAR EDUCATOR. 



Participles frequently stand as adjectives, as the broken wheel, 

 the mourning city. 



Adjectives sometimes appear as nouns. The word square is, 

 according to its application, either a noun or an adjective ; as 

 appears in these examples -. 



Noun. The general ordered the troops to form a square. 

 Adjective. A square room fails in due proportion. 

 Adjectives may be made into nouns by means of the definite 

 article, as the cowardly : for example 



The cowardly flee when there is no danger. 



It is only when an adjective has acquired a fixed substantival 

 force that it can be preceded by the indefinite article ; as 



An imbecile should be restricted from doing evil. 

 It also deserves remark that an adjective converted into a 

 noun by the definite article is used in the plural ; thus we say 



The sick are well tended j 



but if we want to employ the singular, we must say, not " the 

 sick drinks," but " the sick man drinks pure water." 



Adjectives are generally placed before the nouns which they 

 qualify; as 



"Miserable comforters are ye all." (Job xvi. 2.) 

 But when an adjective is an attribute, and so forms part of the 

 predicate, it stands after its noun ; as 



" No hand is wholly innocent in war." 



The qualified noun is sometimes understood that is, it has 

 to be supplied from either the sense or the context ; as 



" To whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest." (Acts 

 Yiii. 10.) 



In every case the adjective agrees with the particular noun 

 with which it stands connected. When, then, the noun is of 

 the singular number, the adjective is to be accounted of the 

 singular number ; when the noun is of the plural number, the 

 adjective is to be accounted of the plural number. Also the 

 gender of the noun determines the gender of the adjective. 



There are pronouns which possess an adjectival force, as this 

 and that. This and that have plural forms ; consequently 

 this and that undergo a change when they come before plural 

 nouns ; for example : 



This horse, these horses ; that book, those books. 



The word whole, denoting one object, a unit, cannot, like all, 

 be used distributively, and consequently ought not to stand 

 before a plural noun. 



As a singular noun requires a singular adjective, so, vice versa, 

 a singular adjective requires a singular noun. Hence we must 

 condemn as ungrammatical the union of adjectives of number 

 (except one) with nouns in the singular ; as 



INCORRECT. 

 Twenty foot long. 

 Six pound ten shilling. 



CORRECT. 



Twenty feet long. 



Six pounds ten shillings. 



Adjectives in the comparative degree take than after them ; 

 aa in the following example : 



He is wiser than you. 



The sentence is obviously elliptical ; if you fill it up, it will 

 stand thus 



He is wiser than you are. 



Here you bears to are the same relation that he bears to is I 

 mean they are severally subjects to the verbs. Hence arises 

 the ordinary rule that conjunctions (than is a conjunction) have 

 the same case after as before them. In the following 



I believe him to be wiser than you, 



you may be either the subject or the object, according to the 

 construction intended. I will fill up the ellipsis in two ways, 

 and you will see the difference : 



Subject. I believe him to be wiser than you (are). 

 Object. I believe him to be wiser than (I believe) you (to be). 

 The proper way, then, to ascertain the relation which a noun 

 or pronoun holds after a comparative, is to fill up the ellipsis or 

 supply the words necessary to complete the sense. 



Some adjectives, from the nature of their import, do not 

 admit of comparison. If a thing is universal, it cannot be more 

 than universal, consequently universal has no comparative and 

 no superlative. Equally is perfect incapable of comparison. 

 The same may be said of absolute, infinite, interminable, bound- 

 less. Accordingly, it is incorrect to say 



He is mora yer/sct than you. 



Instead of which you may say 



He is less imperfect than you ; or, 

 He is nearer perfection than you. 



Double comparisons are to be avoided ; for example 



INCORRECT. 



Less nobler plunder- 

 The most straitest sect. 



CORRECT. 



Less noble plunder. 

 The straitest sect. 



HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY. IX. 



CIRCULATION (concluded) EXCRETORY ORGANS. 

 WHEN speaking of the structure of the arteries, it was said 

 that they had three coats, one of which was elastic, another 

 muscular, and the third mucous. The purpose of the first coat 

 is to enable the vessel to expand when the blood is forced into 

 it by the ventricle, and so save the artery from giving way 

 under the sudden pressure to which it is subjected; this elastic 

 property also serves another purpose, by reducing what without 

 it would be an intermittent and jerking flow of the blood to a 

 continuous stream ; it is also of great importance in enabling 

 the vessels to enlarge when from any cause a sudden increase in 

 the supply of blood to any part of the body takes place. The 

 muscular property of arteries, though it does not probably 

 directly aid in propelling the blood, is important, as regulating 

 the quantity of blood sent to any particular tissue, according to 

 its requirements at any special moment; it is also essential 

 when an artery is wounded, enabling the vessel to contract, 

 closing the orifice, and so preventing bleeding. The jerking 

 motion of the blood, which it is the purpose of the elastic pro- 

 perties of the arteries to control, but which is not entirely sub- 

 dued until the blood reaches the capillaries, causes that pulsation 

 which is felt at the wrist or at any other spot where the artery 

 is sufficiently superficial, and which is commonly known as the 

 pulse. The pulse is, of course, a measure of the frequency of 

 the heart's action, as its beats correspond with the contraction 

 of the ventricles ; the pulse varies according to age, and is 

 affected by many circumstances the average in an adult is 

 from 70 to 75 per minute ; in an infant at birth, 140 ; whilst in 

 old age it gradually declines from the adult standard ; in persons 

 of an excitable or sanguine temperament it is quicker than in 

 the phlegmatic, and it is also more rapid in women than in men. 

 After a meal the pulse is quicker than while fasting, and any 

 exertion not carried sufficiently far to produce exhaustion in- 

 creases its rapidity in proportion to the severity of the exercise 

 taken. In the morning it is more rapid than at night, when 

 the body is fatigued. Position also influences it ; it is slowest 

 in the recumbent posture ; sitting or standing increases it, 

 the latter more so, as requiring more muscular action. 



When the blood reaches the capillary network, it begins to 

 move at a much slower rate ; and when it is examined by a 

 microscope, as can bo easily done in the web of a frog's foot, it 

 is seen that the red corpuscles occupy the centre of the stream, 

 and move most rapidly, whilst the white creep along the walls 

 of the vessel at a very sluggish pace, and even sometimes seem 

 to adhere to them for a time. The greater slowness of the cir- 

 culation in the capillaries is caused partly by the much larger 

 area in the aggregate of these vessels, and also, as a consequence 

 of this, the large increase of the friction caused by the walls of 

 the vessels. The purpose of this retardation will be seen when 

 we come to speak, as we shall do directly, of the process of 

 nutrition. In the veins the blood moves as in the capillaries, 

 without any jerking motion, but at a greater pace, though not 

 so fast as in the arteries : here the valves which are placed in 

 most of the larger veins play an important part, in preventing a 

 backward flow of the blood, and thus compensating in a measure 

 for the diminished influence of the heart's action. 



Such, then, is the circulation of the blood ; and we must now 

 shortly inquire how it fulfils its purpose of maintaining and 

 nourishing the body. When the blood is circulating slowly 

 through the capillaries, it is brought into most intimate relations 

 with the various tissues which it has to supply ; whilst the walls 

 of these vessels are of such a degree of fineness as to offer the 

 least possible resistance to the process of absorption that is con- 

 stantly going on through them. Each tissue has the power of 

 appropriating that element which is suitable to itself from the 

 common current, and letting the unsuitable elements pass on. 

 This selective power of the tissues is not confined to the nutrient 

 materials which are necessary for their building up and mainte- 



