ARTICLE.
The Article is a word prefixed to substantives, to point them out, and to shew how far their signification extends.
In English there are but two articles, a, and the: a becomes an before a vowel or a silent h.
A is used in a vague sense to point out one single thing of the kind, in other respects indeterminate: the determines what particular thing is meant.
A substantive without any article to limit it is taken in its widest sense: thus man means all mankind; as,
“The proper study of mankind is man:”
Pope.
where mankind and man may change places without making any alteration in the sense. A man means some one or other of that kind, indefinitely; the man means, definitely, that particular man, who is spoken of: the former therefore is called the Indefinite, the latter the Definite, Article[1].
Example: “Man was made for society, and ought to extend his good-will to all men: but a man will naturally entertain a more particular kindness for the men with whom he has the most frequent intercourse; and enter into a still closer union with the man, whose temper and disposition suit best with his own.”
It is of the nature of both the Articles to determine or limit the thing spoken of: a determines it to be one single thing of the kind, leaving it still uncertain which; the determines which it is, or of many which they are. The first therefore can only be joined to Substantives in the singular number[2]; the last may also be joined to plurals.
There is a remarkable exception to this rule in the use of the Adjectives few and many, (the latter chiefly with the word great before it) which, though joined with plural Substantives, yet admit of the singular Article a: as, a few men, a great many men;
“Told of a many thousand warlike French:”—
“The care-craz’d mother of a many children.”
Shakespear.
The reason of it is manifest from the effect which the Article has in these phrases: it means a small or great number collectively taken, and therefore gives the idea of a Whole, that is, of Unity. Thus likewise a hundred, a thousand, is one whole number, an aggregate of many collectively taken; and therefore still retains the Article a, tho’ joined as an Adjective to a plural Substantive: as, a hundred years;[3]
“For harbour at a thousand doors they knock’d;
Not one of all the thousand, but was lock’d.”
Dryden.
The Definite Article the is sometimes applied to Adverbs in the comparative degree, and its effect is to mark the degree the more strongly, and to define it the more precisely: as, “The more I examine it, the better I like it. I like this the least of any.”