the agreement or disagreement of some of them; but he must think in train, and observe the dependence of his thoughts and reasonings upon one another.  And to express well such methodical and rational thoughts, he must have words to show what connexion, restriction, distinction, opposition, emphasis, &c., he gives to each respective part of his discourse.  To mistake in any of these, is to puzzle instead of informing his hearer:  and therefore it is, that those words which are not truly by themselves the names of any ideas are of such constant and indispensable use in language, and do much contribute to men’s well expressing themselves.

3.  They say what Relation the Mind gives to its own Thoughts.

This part of grammar has been perhaps as much neglected as some others over-diligently cultivated.  It is easy for men to write, one after another, of cases and genders, moods and tenses, gerunds and supines:  in these and the like there has been great diligence used; and particles themselves, in some languages, have been, with great show of exactness, ranked into their several orders.  But though prepositions and conjunctions, &c., are names well known in grammar, and the particles contained under them carefully ranked into their distinct subdivisions; yet he who would show the right use of particles, and what significancy and force they have, must take a little more pains, enter into his own thoughts, and observe nicely the several postures of his mind in discoursing.

4.  They are all marks of some action or intimation of the mind.

Neither is it enough, for the explaining of these words, to render them, as is usual in dictionaries, by words of another tongue which come nearest to their signification:  for what is meant by them is commonly as hard to be understood in one as another language.  They are all marks of some action or intimation of the mind; and therefore to understand them rightly, the several views, postures, stands, turns, limitations, and exceptions, and several other thoughts of the mind, for which we have either none or very deficient names, are diligently to be studied.  Of these there is a great variety, much exceeding the number of particles that most languages have to express them by:  and therefore it is not to be wondered that most of these particles have divers and sometimes almost opposite significations.  In the Hebrew tongue there is a particle consisting of but one single letter, of which there are reckoned up, as I remember, seventy, I am sure above fifty, several significations.

5.  Instance in But.

‘But’ is a particle, none more familiar in our language:  and he that says it is a discretive conjunction, and that it answers to sed Latin, or mais in French, thinks he has sufficiently explained it.  But yet it seems to me to intimate several relations the mind gives to the several propositions or parts of them which it joins by this monosyllable.