I am aware that usage may be pleaded in favour of “more and most universal, more and most perfect.” This usage, however, is not such as will sanction the former of these phraseologies; for good writers generally avoid it. Besides, there is no necessity for resorting to this mode of expression, as we have an attributive appropriate to the idea intended: thus, instead of saying, “Literature is more universal in England than America,” we should say, “Literature is more general.” It is almost unnecessary to observe, that literature in England is either universal, or it is not; if the former be true, it cannot be more than universal; if the latter, the term is inapplicable. The word general does not comprise the whole; it admits intension and remission: the adjective universal implies totality. A general rule admits exceptions; a universal rule embraces every particular.
The expression “more perfect” is, in strictness of speech, equally exceptionable; usage, however, has given it a sanction which we dare hardly controvert. It has been proposed, indeed, to avoid this and similar improprieties, by giving the phraseology a negative, or indirect form. Thus, instead of saying, “A time-keeper is a more perfect machine than a watch,” it has been proposed to say, “A time-keeper is a less imperfect machine than a watch.” This phraseology is logically correct, perfection being predicable of neither the one thing nor the other; it might likewise, in many cases, be adopted with propriety. In the language of passion, however, and in the colourings of imagination, such expressions would be exanimate and intolerable. A lover, expatiating with rapture on the beauty and perfection of his mistress, would hardly call her, “the least imperfect of her sex.”
In all languages, indeed, examples are to be found of adjectives being compared whose signification admits neither intension nor remission. It would be easy to assign several reasons for this, did the discussion belong to the province of the grammarian[39]. Suffice it to say, that such phraseologies should never be admitted where the language will furnish correct, and equally apposite, expressions.
I observe also, that as those adjectives whose signification cannot be heightened or lessened admit not comparison, so, for the same reason, they exclude all intensive words. The expressions, so universal, so extreme, and such like, are therefore improper. The former is indeed common enough; but it is easy to see, as it has been already remarked, that whatever is universal cannot be increased or diminished; and that what is less than universal, cannot be characterized by that epithet. The phrase so universal implies a gradation in universality, and that something is less so than an another; which is evidently impossible.
It has been questioned, whether prior, superior, ulterior, exterior, and several others, which have the form of the Latin comparative, should be deemed comparatives. I am inclined to think, they ought not, for these reasons; 1st, They have not the form of the English comparative; 2dly, They are never followed by than, which uniformly accompanies the English comparative, when the subjects are opposed to each other, or referred to different classes; 3dly, It is not to be conceived, that every adjective, which implies comparison, is therefore a comparative or superlative, otherwise preferable (better than), previous (prior to), might be deemed comparatives; 4thly, Many of these have truly a positive meaning, not implying an excess of the quality, but merely the quality, as opposed to its contrary. The interior means simply the inside, as opposed to the exterior or outside; the anterior, “the one before,” opposed to posterior, “the one behind.”
I dismiss this article with observing, that the signification of the positive is sometimes lessened by the termination ish; as, white, whitish; black, blackish. Johnson remarks, that the adjective in this form may be considered as in a state of comparison; it may properly be called a diminutive.
CHAPTER V.
OF THE VERB.
A verb has been defined to be “that part of speech which signifies to be, to do, or to suffer;” or more correctly, “that part of speech which predicates some action, passion, or state of its subject,” as “I strike,” “I am wounded,” “I stand.” Its essence consists in affirmation, and by this property it is distinguished from every other part of speech. The adjective expresses an accident, quality, or property of a thing in concreto; that is, when joined to the name of a substance, it expresses that substance, as accompanied by some attribute: in other words, it limits a generic name, confining it to that part of the kind, which possesses the character, which the attributive specifies; but it affirms nothing. Thus, if we say, “a wise man,” which is equivalent to “a man with,” or “having wisdom,” there is no affirmation; an individual is singled from a species, under the character of wisdom, but nothing is asserted of this individual. If we say “the man is wise,” there is something affirmed of the man, and the affirmation is expressed by is. If the attribute and the assertion be combined in the expression, as in Latin vir sapit, it is obvious that the essence of the verb consists, not in denoting the attribute wisdom, but in affirming that quality, as belonging to the subject; for, if you cancel the assertion, the verb is immediately converted into an adjective, and the expression becomes vir sapiens, a wise man.
The simplest of all verbs is that which the Greeks call a verb of existence, namely, the verb to be. This verb frequently denotes pure affirmation, as “God is good,” where the verb, or copula, as it has been termed, serves to predicate of the Deity, the attribute denoted by the following word. Hence, as it expresses mere affirmation, the Latins call it a substantive verb, in contradistinction to those verbs which, with an attribute, denote assertion, and were called by some grammarians adjective verbs.