The collected works of William Hazlitt, Vol. 04 (of 12)

by William Hazlitt

The soundest and most useful parts of Mr. T.’s system, are his researches into the origin of indeclinable words, and we have engrafted the result of most of these into our little work, so far at least as to make the subject intelligible to the learner, though if we have merely excited his curiosity, we shall not have entirely failed in our object.

The practical rules and observations in the following work are almost entirely selected from other works of the same kind: if it should be thought to have any advantage over them, it must be chiefly in the theoretical and logical part. We shall here therefore present the reader with a short general view of the subject, to enable him to judge in what we differ from others, and whether it is for the better or worse.

It is common to suppose that the parts of speech, or different sorts of words, relate to different sorts of things or ideas; and that it was to express this difference in the subject-matter of discourse, that one class of words was originally appropriated to one class of things, and another to another. We have endeavoured to show on the contrary, that the grammatical distinctions of words do not relate to the nature of the things or ideas spoken of, but to our manner of speaking of them, i.e. to the particular point of view in which we have occasion to consider them, or combine them with others in the same discourse. The difference between a substantive and an adjective for instance, does not depend on the intrinsical nature of the object we think or speak of, but on its being that concerning which we affirm something, or that which we affirm of it. So if we say that snow is white, snow, the name of the subject of discourse, is a substantive, and white, the name of the quality we attribute to it, is an adjective, not because snow is a substance, and white a quality, for we may speak of a snowy mountain, or say that whiteness is hurtful to the eyes, when these words will change their character, though the things themselves cannot. The things themselves do not change, but it is we who view them in a different connection with other things, and who accordingly use different sorts of words to show the difference of the situation which they occupy in our thoughts and discourse.

The article is generally left quite unexplained, a mere anomaly in language. We have endeavoured to show that it is either the numeral adjective (un, one) or that it belongs to the same class with the demonstrative pronouns, this, that, &c.

A substantive had been generally supposed to be a word expressing a real thing or substance, as A man, a tree, a house, &c. It was however found that this definition would exclude many words from being substantives, which are universally allowed to be so; for example, all words expressing qualities, actions, abstract ideas, &c. &c. such as, Whiteness, conquest, kingdom, virtue. The only definition which in common grammars has been substituted for this circumscribed one is as much too loose and general: for a substantive is defined by Lowth, Murray, &c., to be the name of any thing that exists, or of which we can form any notion. So that all words, i.e. all signs of our ideas, must be substantives. We believe that a substantive is neither the name of a thing, nor the name of a substance, but the name of a substance or of any other thing or idea, considered as it is in itself, or as a distinct individual. That is, it is not the name of a thing really subsisting by itself (according to the old definition), but of a thing considered as subsisting by itself. So if we speak of white as a circumstance or quality of snow, it is an adjective; but if we abstract the idea of white from the substance to which it belongs, and consider this colour as it really is in itself, or as a distinct subject of discourse, it then becomes a substantive, as in the sentence, White or whiteness is hurtful to the sight.

Adjectives are constantly defined as if they were the names of certain qualities, and of no other class of ideas. It is evident from what has been said that this definition is fallacious. We speak of a stony road, a golden mountain, a leather girdle, where the words marked in italics, and which refer to the substance of which a thing is made, not to its qualities, are confessedly adjectives. Any idea or thing, considered as a circumstance belonging to or connected with another, may be an adjective. An adjective therefore differs from a substantive, not from its expressing some quality of a substance, but from its expressing any thing that is affirmed of or connected with another, to wit, its quality, number, form, size, substance, situation, &c. &c., as may be seen in the instances, A white horse, A tenth part, A round table, A small book, An iron crown, A sea port. On the other hand, the characteristic difference between the adjective and the verb is, that the former expresses something that is usually known to belong to a thing, or which is taken for granted as a circumstance belonging to it; whereas the latter or the verb expresses something not usually belonging to a thing, or known to make a part of it, and which therefore forms the subject of a distinct proposition. The use of the adjective is to describe or define the subject of discourse, that of the verb to mark any addition which the speaker wishes to make to it, or any circumstance respecting it which it is his immediate object to enforce upon the hearer. So if we speak of a ‘poisonous plant,’ we take for granted the connection between the subject and the attribute as a thing of course, or as already understood; but if we say, ‘hemlock poisons, or is poisonous,’ we then distinguish this connection of ideas as one which we suppose the hearer to be ignorant of, or which we particularly wish to recal to his attention.

We have been led unintentionally in speaking of the adjectives to anticipate our account of the verb. Nothing can be more vague, unsatisfactory and confused than the definition commonly given of the last, namely, that it is a word signifying To be, To do, or To suffer. From this definition the student may be tempted to suppose that Being, Doing, and Suffering are three particular classes of ideas, which are always expressed by the verb, and by no other part of speech. Let us examine how far this is the case. To love, then, is a verb, because it expresses Being, Doing, or Suffering. Love (the substantive) is not a verb, and yet it surely expresses either Being, Doing, or Suffering. Battle, Conquest, &c., are the names of actions, yet they are not verbs, but substantives. Active, Hasty, Cowardly, are adjectives, all of them expressing Action, Suffering, Being, or a state of being. In fact, those who have made and adopted this definition, have sheltered its weakness under an ambiguous form of expression. If they had said that a verb is a word signifying Being, Doing, or Suffering, their account would not have been admitted. The prefix of the infinitive mood (To be, To do, &c.) is the only resemblance which the definition has to the subject. Instead of defining the verb, they make use of one. It remains however to show in what respect To Be, To Do, and To Suffer differ from Being, Doing, and Suffering. It cannot be in the subject-matter, or the ideas themselves, for these are the same.

Some persons have confined the signification of the verb to action. See Introduction to an Analytical Dictionary by David Booth. But this hypothesis, which is more determinate than the other, and at least aims at a meaning, is hardly tenable. The verb To Be does not express action. To belong to, To possess, To contain, To extend over, &c., do not express action, i.e. motion or change. Not to say that other classes of words, as nouns and adjectives, express action as well as verbs, as we have shown above. It would be better to say that a verb expresses some fact or event, that is to say, Being, Doing, or Suffering, as distinguished from a state of Being, Doing, or Suffering. But neither do all verbs express a single act or instance of a thing. When we say Two and two make four, we do not mean they do so in a single instance, but always. It is true, however, that verbs oftener express what happens to a thing, than what belongs to it, and that they do not express any proposition more generally than the nature of the subject requires. They make any thing known in a more marked and pointed, and therefore in a more limited manner. This secondary quality in the verb, however, seems to form the chief distinction between the participle and the adjective. Those indeed who make the participle an essential part of the verb, must adopt the definition here referred to, viz. that a verb is a word signifying a single, not a general attribution of one thing to another, or the actually being, doing, or suffering any thing, as distinct from a state of being, doing, or suffering. If we were to adopt any other definition of the verb than the one we have inserted, it would certainly be this. But we think it more consistent both with the particular meaning of words, and with the logic of grammar, to divide adjectives and verbs into words intended to express a given, or known connection between our ideas, and words intended to communicate a new or unknown one, than into words representing a continued connection between the subject and the attribute, and an accidental or momentary one.

We shall here just notice by the way the very unsatisfactory account of active and passive verbs given by grammarians. A verb is active, they say, when it denotes the doing of an action, passive when it denotes the receiving one. The words To receive a blow will upon this principle signify the doing of an action, and to say that an action is performed will signify the receiving one. In fact the notion of agency or passiveness has no necessary connection with the active and passive forms of verbs. For an attempt to explain this subject, we refer to the grammar itself.

A pronoun is a general term to express an individual. Thus by the words He, she, it, I, you, &c., we mean that particular person or thing, which occupies a certain situation in the discourse, the person speaking, or the person spoken to, &c. A pronoun is literally a word used instead of, or which supplies the place of a noun, because instead of mentioning the name of the individual, we only refer to it by some known circumstance of situation which ascertains the object we mean. Pronouns are therefore adjectives defining some circumstance of a thing, and put absolutely.