"Whatever faction's partial notions are,
No hand is wholly innocent in war."
—Rowe's Lucan, B. vii, l. 191.
EXCEPTION FIRST.
An adjective sometimes relates to a phrase or sentence which is made the subject of an intervening verb; as, "To insult the afflicted, is impious"—Dillwyn. "That he should refuse, is not strange"—"To err is human." Murray says, "Human belongs to its substantive 'nature' understood."—Gram., p. 233. From this I dissent.
EXCEPTION SECOND.
In combined arithmetical numbers, one adjective often relates to an other, and the whole phrase, to a subsequent noun; as, "One thousand four hundred and fifty-six men."—"Six dollars and eighty-seven and a half cents for every five days' service."—"In the one hundred and twenty-second year."—"One seven times more than it was wont to be heated."—Daniel, iii, 19.
EXCEPTION THIRD.
With an infinitive or a participle denoting being or action in the abstract, an adjective is sometimes also taken abstractly; (that is, without reference to any particular noun, pronoun, or other subject;) as, "To be sincere, is to be wise, innocent, and safe."—Hawkesworth. "Capacity marks the abstract quality of being able to receive or hold."—Crabb's Synonymes. "Indeed, the main secret of being sublime, is to say great things in few and plain words."—Hiley's Gram., p. 215. "Concerning being free from sin in heaven, there is no question."—Barclay's Works, iii, 437. Better: "Concerning freedom from sin," &c.
EXCEPTION FOURTH.
Adjectives are sometimes substituted for their corresponding abstract nouns; (perhaps, in most instances, elliptically, like Greek neuters;) as, "The sensations of sublime and beautiful are not always distinguished by very distant boundaries."—Blair's Rhet., p. 47. That is, "of sublimity and beauty." "The faults opposite to the sublime are chiefly two: the frigid, and the bombast"—Ib., p. 44. Better: "The faults opposite to sublimity, are chiefly two; frigidity and bombast." "Yet the ruling character of the nation was that of barbarous and cruel."—Brown's Estimate, ii, 26. That is, "of barbarity and cruelty." "In a word, agreeable and disagreeable are qualities of the objects we perceive," &c.—Kames, El. of Crit., i, 99. "Polished, or refined, was the idea which the author had in view."—Blair's Rhet., p. 219.