Note 73 — PREFACE TO A NEW AND IMPROVED GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH TONGUE

Mr. Tooke has fallen into the same mistake with which he reproaches preceding writers, that of supposing the different sorts of words to be the measure of the different sorts of things. He has only reversed their inference: for as the old grammarians, who admitted more different sorts of words, contended for more differences of things, so Mr. Tooke, who admits of fewer sorts of words, argues that there can be only as many different ideas or things, as are expressed by the different parts of speech. Thus, if substantives and adjectives do not represent substance and quality, there can be no such difference in nature, or in the human understanding. This we conceive to be a piece of as false philosophy, as if we were to affirm that there can be no difference between blue or yellow, because they are both adjectives, or between light and sound, because they are both substantives. Mr. Tooke’s whole object is to show that the different parts of speech do not relate to the differences in ideas or things, and yet he would make the difference in the one, the test of the difference in the other. As to all that he has said of abstraction, and the real or physical meaning of words, we believe that we do not understand him; for, as far as we do, his facts and cases seem to us to prove the very reverse of his conclusions. So he has brought 2000 instances of the meaning of words to demonstrate that we have no abstract ideas, not one of which 2000 meanings is any thing else but an abstract idea. Logic and metaphysics are the weak sides of his reasoning. But he has rendered essential services to grammar, which cannot be overlooked or forgotten.