Note 121 — DISSERTATION IV.

The great source of these errors is this: Grammarians have considered that as a conjunction, and supposed that "conjunctions couple like cases and modes;" a Latin rule that does not always hold in English. But Mr. Horne Tooke has clearly proved the word that to be always a relative pronoun: It always relates to a word or sentence; and the reason why grammarians have called it a conjunction, may be this; they could not find any word to govern it as a relative, and therefore did not know what to do with it. But it is in fact a relative word, thus, "two men have made a discovery;" this is one assertion. What discovery? "that or this is the discovery;" the word that carrying the force of a complete affirmation; "there was a God." Here we see the absurdity of Swift's declaration and the common notions of a subjunctive mode. There is no subjunctive; in strictness of speech, all sentences are resolvable into distinct declaratory phrases. "There is a God;" "two young men have discovered that;" so the sentence should be written to show the true construction.