sooner obtain and become general than they are laws of the
language, and the grammarian's only business is to note, col-
lect, and methodize them. Nor does this truth concern only
those more comprehensive analogies or rules which affect
whole classes of words, such as nouns, verbs, and the other
parts of speech; but it concerns every individual word, in the
inflecting or the combining of which a particular mode hath
prevailed. Every single anomaly, therefore, though depart-
ing from the rule assigned to the other words of the same
class, and on that account called an exception, stands on the
same basis on which the rules of the tongue are founded,
custom having prescribed for it a separate rule. ^*

The truth of this position hath never, for aught I can re
member, been directly controverted by anybody; yet it is
certain that both critics and grammarians often argue in such
a way as is altogether inconsistent with it. What, for ex-
ample, shall we make of that complaint of Dr. Swift, "that
our language, in many instances, offends against every part
of grammar?" ^†
Or what could the doctor's notion of gram-
mar be, when he expressed himself in this manner? Some
notion, possibly, he had of grammar in the abstract, a univer-
sal archetype by which the particular grammars of all differ-
ent tongues ought to be regulated. If this was his meaning,
I cannot say whether he is in the right or in the wrong in this
accusation. I acknowledge myself to be entirely ignorant of
this ideal grammar; nor can I form a conjecture where its
laws are to be learned. One thing, indeed, every smatterer
in philosophy will tell us, that there can be no natural con-
nexion between the sounds of any language and the things
signified, or between the modes of inflection and combination,
and the relations they are intended to express. Perhaps he
meant the grammar of some other language; if so, the charge
was certainly true, but not to the purpose, since we can say
with equal truth of every language, that it offends against the
grammar of every other language whatsoever. If he meant
the English grammar, I would ask. Whence has that grammar
derived its laws? If from general use (and I cannot conceive
another origin), then it must be owned that there is a gener-
al use in that language as well as in others; and it were ab-
surd to accuse the language which is purely what is con-
formable to general use in speaking and writing, as offend-
ing against general use. But if he meant to say that there
is no fixed, established, or general use in the language, that

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