OBSERVATIONS.
OBS. 1.—The pronouns I and myself, thou and thyself, with their inflections, are literally applicable to persons only; but, figuratively, they represent brutes, or whatever else the human imagination invests with speech and reason. The latter use of them, though literal perhaps in every thing but person, constitutes the purest kind of personification. For example: "The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them: and they said unto the olive-tree, 'Reign thou over us.' But the olive-tree said unto them, 'Should I leave my fatness, wherewith by me they honour God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?'" See Judges, ix, from 8 to 16.
OBS. 2.—The pronouns he and himself, she and herself, with their inflections, are literally applicable to persons and to brutes, and to these only; if applied to lifeless objects, they animate them, and are figurative in gender, though literal perhaps in every other respect. For example: "A diamond of beauty and lustre, observing at his side in the same cabinet, not only many other gems, but even a loadstone, began to question the latter how he came there—he, who appeared to be no better than a mere flint, a sorry rusty-looking pebble, without the least shining quality to advance him to such honour; and concluded with desiring him to keep his distance, and to pay a proper respect to his superiors."—Kames's Art of Thinking, p. 226.
OBS. 3.—The pronoun it, as it carries in itself no such idea as that of personality, or sex, or life, is chiefly used with reference to things inanimate; yet the word is, in a certain way, applicable to animals, or even to persons; though it does not, in itself, present them as such. Thus we say, "It is I;"—"It was they;"—"It was you;"—"It was your agent;"—"It is your bull that has killed one of my oxen." In examples of this kind, the word it is simply demonstrative; meaning, the thing or subject spoken of. That subject, whatever it be in itself, may be introduced again after the verb, in any person, number, or gender, that suits it. But, as the verb agrees with the pronoun it, the word which follows, can in no sense be made, as Dr. Priestley will have it to be, the antecedent to that pronoun. Besides, it is contrary to the nature of what is primarily demonstrative, to represent a preceding word of any kind. The Doctor absurdly says, "Not only things, but persons, may be the antecedent to this pronoun; as, Who is it? Is it not Thomas? i. e. Who is the person? Is not he Thomas?"—Priestley's Gram., p. 85. In these examples, the terms are transposed by interrogation; but that circumstance, though it may have helped to deceive this author and his copiers, affects not my assertion.
OBS. 4.—The pronoun who is usually applied only to persons. Its application to brutes or to things is improper, unless we mean to personify them. But whose, the possessive case of this relative, is sometimes used to supply the place of the possessive case, otherwise wanting, to the relative which. Examples: "The mutes are those consonants whose sounds cannot be protracted."—Murray's Gram., p. 9. "Philosophy, whose end is, to instruct us in the knowledge of nature."—Ib., p. 54; Campbell's Rhet., 421. "Those adverbs are compared whose primitives are obsolete."—Adam's Latin Gram., p. 150. "After a sentence whose sense is complete in itself, a period is used."—Nutting's Gram., p. 124. "We remember best those things whose parts are methodically disposed, and mutually connected."—Beattie's Moral Science, i, 59. "Is there any other doctrine whose followers are punished?"—ADDISON: Murray's Gram., p. 54; Lowth's, p. 25.
"The question, whose solution I require,
Is, what the sex of women most desire."—DRYDEN: Lowth, p. 25.
OBS. 5.—Buchanan, as well as Lowth, condemns the foregoing use of whose, except in grave poetry: saying, "This manner of personification adds an air of dignity to the higher and more solemn kind of poetry, but it is highly improper in the lower kind, or in prose."—Buchanan's English Syntax, p. 73. And, of the last two examples above quoted, he says, "It ought to be of which, in both places: i. e. The followers of which; the solution of which."—Ib., p. 73. The truth is, that no personification is here intended. Hence it may be better to avoid, if we can, this use of whose, as seeming to imply what we do not mean. But Buchanan himself (stealing the text of an older author) has furnished at least one example as objectionable as any of the foregoing: "Prepositions are naturally placed betwixt the Words whose Relation and Dependence each of them is to express."—English Syntax, p. 90; British Gram., p. 201. I dislike this construction, and yet sometimes adopt it, for want of another as good. It is too much, to say with Churchill, that "this practice is now discountenanced by all correct writers."—New Gram., p. 226. Grammarians would perhaps differ less, if they would read more. Dr. Campbell commends the use of whose for of which, as an improvement suggested by good taste, and established by abundant authority. See Philosophy of Rhetoric, p. 420. "WHOSE, the possessive or genitive case of who or which; applied to persons or things."—Webster's Octavo Dict. "Whose is well authorized by good usage, as the possessive of which."—Sanborn's Gram., p. 69. "Nor is any language complete, whose verbs have not tenses."—Harris's Hermes.
"————'Past and future, are the wings
On whose support, harmoniously conjoined,
Moves the great spirit of human knowledge.'—MS."
Wordsworth's Preface to his Poems, p. xviii.
OBS. 6.—The relative which, though formerly applied to persons and made equivalent to who, is now confined to brute animals and inanimate things. Thus, "Our Father which art in heaven," is not now reckoned good English; it should be, "Our Father who art in heaven." In this, as well as in many other things, the custom of speech has changed; so that what was once right, is now ungrammatical. The use of which for who is very common in the Bible, and in other books of the seventeenth century; but all good writers now avoid the construction. It occurs seventy-five times in the third chapter of Luke; as, "Joseph, which was the son of Heli, which was the son of Matthat," etc. etc. After a personal term taken by metonymy for a thing, which is not improper; as, "Of the particular author which he is studying."—Gallaudet. And as an interrogative or a demonstrative pronoun or adjective, the word which is still applicable to persons, as formerly; as, "Which of you all?"—"Which man of you all?"—"There arose a reasoning among them, which of them should be the greatest."—Luke, ix, 46. "Two fair twins—the puzzled Strangers, which is which, inquire."—Tickell.
OBS. 7.—If which, as a direct relative, is inapplicable to persons, who ought to be preferred to it in all personifications: as,