Nor are there wanting older works in English that have a value in Gothic philology. I should be sorry to speak as if, beyond the writers of what may be called the modern school of philology, there was nothing for the English grammarian both to read and study. The fragments of Ben Jonson's English Grammar are worth the entireties of many later writers. The work of Wallis is eminently logical and precise. The voice of a mere ruler of rules is a sound to flee from; but the voice of a truly powerful understanding is a thing to be heard on all matters. It is this which gives to Cobbett and Priestley, to Horne Tooke as a subtle etymologist, and to Johnson as a practical lexicographer, a value in literary history, which they never can have in grammar. It converts unwholesome doctrines into a fertile discipline of thought.
The method of the present work is mixed. It is partly historical, and partly logical. The historical portions exhibit the way in which words and inflections have been used; the logical, the way in which they ought to be used. Now I cannot conceal from either my readers or myself the fact that philological criticism at the present moment is of an essentially
historical character. It has been by working the historical method that all the great results both in general and special scholarship have been arrived at; and it is on historical investigation that the whole induction of modern philology rests. All beyond is à priori argument; and, according to many, à priori argument out of place. Now, this gives to the questions in philology, to questions concerning the phenomena of concord, government, &c. a subordinate character. It does so, however, improperly. Logic is in language what it is in reasoning,—a rule and standard. But in its application to reasoning and to language there is this difference. Whilst illogical reasoning, and illogical grammar are equally phenomena of the human mind, even as physical disease is a phenomenon of the human body, the illogical grammar can rectify itself by its mere continuance, propagation, and repetition. In this respect the phenomena of language stand apart from the other phenomena of either mind or organized matter. No amount of false argument can make a fallacy other than a fallacy. No amount of frequency can make physical disease other than a predisposing cause to physical disorganization. The argument that halts in its logic, is not on a par with the argument that is sound. Such also is the case with any bodily organ. No prevalence of sickness can ever evolve health. Language, however, as long as it preserves the same amount of intelligibility is always language. Provided it serve as a medium, it does its proper work;
and as long as it does this, it is, as far as its application is concerned, faultless. Now there is a limit in logical regularity which language is perpetually overstepping; just as there is a logical limit which the reasoning of common life is perpetually overstepping, and just as there is a physiological limit which the average health of men and women may depart from. This limit is investigated by the historical method; which shows the amount of latitude in which language may indulge and yet maintain its great essential of intelligibility. Nay, more, it can show that it sometimes transgresses the limit in so remarkable a manner, as to induce writers to talk about the corruption of a language, or the pathology of a language, with the application of many similar metaphors. Yet it is very doubtful whether all languages, in all their stages, are not equally intelligible, and, consequently, equally what they ought to be, viz., mediums of intercourse between man and man; whilst, in respect to their growth, it is almost certain that so far from exhibiting signs of dissolution, they are, on the contrary, like the Tithonus of mythology, the Strulbrugs of Laputa, or, lastly, such monsters as Frankenstein, very liable to the causes of death, but utterly unable to die. Hence, in language, whatever is, is right; a fact which, taken by itself, gives great value to the historical method of inquiry, and leaves little to the à priori considerations of logic.
But, on the other hand, there is a limit in logical regularity, which language never oversteps: and as
long as this is the case, the study of the logical standard of what language is in its normal form must go hand in hand with the study of the processes that deflect it. The investigation of the irregularities of language—and be it remembered that almost all change implies original irregularity—is analogous to the investigation of fallacies in logic. It is the comparison between the rule and the practice, with this difference, that in language the practice can change the rule, which in logic is impossible. I am sure that these remarks are necessary in order to anticipate objections that may be raised against certain statements laid down in the syntax. I often write as if I took no account of the historical evidence, in respect to particular uses of particular words. I do so, not because I undervalue that department of philology, but because it is out of place. To show that one or more writers, generally correct, have used a particular expression is to show that they speak, in a few instances, as the vulgar speak in many. To show that the vulgar use one expression for another is to show that two ideas are sufficiently allied to be expressed in the same manner: in other words, the historical fact is accompanied by a logical explanation; and the historical deviation is measured by a logical standard.
I am not desirous of sacrificing a truth to an antithesis, but so certain is language to change from logical accuracy to logical licence, and, at the same time, so certain is language, when so changed, to be
just as intelligible as before, that I venture upon asserting that, not only whatever is, is right, but also, that in many cases, whatever was, was wrong. There is an antagonism, between logic and practice; and the phenomena on both sides must be studied.