Now me and better may be said to make good the defectiveness of I and good; and I and good may be said to replace the forms wanting in me and better. This gives us the principle of compensation. To introduce a new term, I and me, good and better, may be said to be complementary to each other.
What applies to nouns applies to verbs also. Go and went are not irregularities. Go is defective in the past tense. Went is without a present. The two words, however, compensate their mutual deficiencies, and are complementary to each other.
The distinction between defectiveness and irregularity, is the first instrument of criticism for coming to true
views concerning the proportion of the regular and irregular verbs.
[§ 324]. The second instrument of criticism in determining the irregular verbs, is the meaning that we attach to the term.
It is very evident that it is in the power of the grammarian to raise the number of etymological irregularities to any amount, by narrowing the definition of the word irregular; in other words, by framing an exclusive rule. The current rule of the common grammarians is that the præterite is formed by the addition of -t, or -d, or -ed; a position sufficiently exclusive; since it proscribes not only the whole class of strong verbs, but also words like bent and sent, where -t exists, but where it does not exist as an addition. The regular forms, it may be said, should be bended and sended.
Exclusive, however, as the rule in question is, it is plain that it might be made more so. The regular forms might, by the fiat of a rule, be restricted to those in -d. In this case words like wept and burnt would be added to the already numerous list of irregulars.
Finally, a further limitation might be made, by laying down as a rule that no word was regular, unless it ended in -ed.
[§ 325]. Thus much concerning the modes of making rules exclusive, and, consequently, of raising the amount of irregularities. This is the last art that the philosophic grammarian is ambitious of acquiring. True etymology reduces irregularity; and that by making the rules of grammar, not exclusive, but general. The quantum of irregularity is in the inverse proportion to the generality of our rules. In language itself there is no irregularity. The word itself is only another name for our ignorance of the processes that change words; and, as irregularity
is in the direct proportion to the exclusiveness of our rules, the exclusiveness of our rules is in the direct proportion to our ignorance of etymological processes.