l899-*00 TRANSACTIONS I07 



In Homer the relative pronoun — one of the subtlest and most 

 useful products of the mind of man — is unknown. The definite 

 article, as such, is also unknown ; so is the indefinite. In I^atin, 

 too, the articles are wanting, and though the relative pronoun is 

 in full use (as in later Greek) there is a valuable form of the 

 demonstrative lacking. Horace, for example, says : 



" ^tas parentum pejor avis tulit 

 Nos nequiores.'' 



which literally translated signifies : ' ' The age of our fathers, 

 worse than our grandfathers, has produced us more worthless 

 still. ' ' Why did not Horace express himself more elegantly and 

 say " the age of our fathers, worse than that of our grandfath- 

 ers " ? Simply because he could not : the word for "that" as 

 here used, and as possessed by the French in the form of "celui," 

 "celle," was lacking to the language. Nor did the Latin ever 

 develop it. Again, while the Greek and Latin languages possessed a 

 considerable number of abstract nouns, these were not as available 

 for use as the abstract nouns of modern speech. Where we should 

 say "from the foundation of the city," "after the expulsion of 

 the kings," one using the Latin language was obliged to say "ab 

 urbe condiiSL, "from the city founded , "post reges expulsos," after 

 the kings expelled, modes of expression which are certainly less 

 logical and less satisfying. 



The more closely we study language from the scientific stand- 

 point the more clearly we see how far the best established and 

 most orthodox usages are from having any absolute authority, how 

 compromise and custom have presided over all the settlements of 

 everyday speech. Just as titles to property become more dubious 

 the farther we ca ry back our researches, so the farther we look 

 back in language the more unsettled things become. If we have 

 a well-established polity to-day in language, it is because those 

 who preceded us tried numberless experiments, fought through 

 numberless difiiculties, and made ways for thought which have 

 become smooth and comfortable by secular use. A good exam- 

 ple of what I mean is afforded by what we call ' 'case' ' in gram- 

 mar. Our Latin grammars speak of six cases ; our Greek gram- 

 mars of five. In English to-day we recognize three cases only, 

 and two of these, the nominative and accusative, are not distin- 

 guished from one another in form except in the personal pro- 



