"The indeclinable þe is often used instead of þæt, se, seó, in all cases, but especially with a relative signification, and, in later times, as an article. Hence the English article the.
"þý seems justly to be received as a proper ablativus instrumenti, as it occurs often in this character, even in the masculine gender; as, mid þý áþe = with that oath ("Inæ Leges," 53). And in the same place in the dative, on þǽm áþe = in that oath."—Pp. 56, 57.
Hence the the that has originated out of the Anglo-Saxon þý is one word; whilst the the that has originated
out of the Anglo-Saxon þe, another. The latter is the common article: the former the the in expressions like all the more, all the better = more by all that, better by all that, and the Latin phrases eo majus, eo melius.
That why is in the same case with the instrumental the ( = þý) may be seen from the following Anglo-Saxon inflexion of the interrogative pronoun:—
| Neut. | Masc. | |
| N. | Hwæt | Hwá |
| A. | Hwæt | Hwone (hwæne). |
| Abl. |
Hwi | |
| D. | Hwám (hwǽm) | |
| G. | Hwæs. | |
Hence, then, in the and why we have instrumental ablatives, or, simply, instrumentals.
[§ 216]. The determination of cases.—How do we determine cases? In other words, why do we call him and them accusatives rather than datives or genitives? By one of two means; viz., either by the sense or the form.
Suppose that in the English language there were ten thousand dative cases and as many accusatives. Suppose, also, that all the dative cases ended in -m, and all the accusatives in some other letter. It is very evident that, whatever might be the meaning of the words him and them their form would be dative. In this case the meaning being accusatives, and the form dative, we should doubt which test to take.
My own opinion is, that it would be convenient to determine cases by the form of the word alone; so that, even if a word had a dative sense only once, where it had an accusative sense ten thousand times, such a word should be said to be in the dative case. Now the words