240 On Definitions. 



way without any exceptions, would cut off many sources of ambi- 

 guity. 



But the irregularities found in the expression of number, sink into 

 insignificance when compared with those which relate to the dis- 

 tinction of gender. I am not aware that there is any known lan- 

 guage, except the English, in which that distinction is founded in 

 nature, and the corresponding accuracy of expression preserved. In 

 all others, it is a mere load to the memory, and consequently a hin- 

 drance to rea;diness of expression, and an interminable obstruction 

 to perspicuity. Many languages have only two genders, and conse- 

 quently arrange all the names of inanimate objects, without any in- 

 telligible rule of distinction, under the masculine or feminine gen- 

 ders. Others have three genders, but still with the most capricious 

 contempt of order distribute the names of inanimate objects among 

 all the three. 



In the degrees of comparison, most languages have been more 

 uniform. Yet all of them have even in this respect, useless irregu- 

 larities. 



The want of genders and numbers in English adjectives, is proba- 

 bly a defect in that language. A uniform mode of forming them, 

 corresponding to their substantives, would probably have been an 

 additional source of precision. 



It is scarcely necessary to bring forward more examples of this 

 irregularity. I would only allude to, but not dwell on the great 

 complexity of the declensions and conjugations in the ancient lan- 

 guages. That there should be five or six modes of producing the 

 same alterations on different nouns, and as many on different verbs, 

 is an extraordinary instance of the caprice of custom. 



All these irregularities, and many others that might be mentioned, 

 both in ancient and modern languages, are occasioned by the same 

 cause. They are consequences of languages being entirely formed 

 by chance, and custom and caprice. The writers on grammar come 

 too late with their rules, to remedy the anomalies which desultory 

 practice had long sanctioned. Nations have never been willing to 

 allow their languages to be reformed according to any principle. 

 They all act as if their language was sacred, the product of some 

 celestial understanding, which no mortal had a right to change or 

 improve. All that is permitted to grammarians, is to collect and 

 methodize the practices which custom has introduced, however wild 

 and incongruous they may have been. But mankind always follow 



