less inherent in the nature of the subject than many have supposed.[64] Objectionable definitions and rules are but evidences of the ignorance and incapacity of him who frames them.  And if the science of grammar has been so unskillfully treated that almost all its positions may be plausibly impugned, it is time for some attempt at a reformation of the code.  The language is before us, and he who knows most about it, can best prescribe the rules which we ought to observe in the use of it.  But how can we expect children to deduce from a few particulars an accurate notion of general principles and their exceptions, where learned doctors have so often faltered?  Let the abettors of grammatical “induction” answer.

2.  Nor let it be supposed a light matter to prescribe with certainty the principles of grammar.  For, what is requisite to the performance?  To know certainly, in the first place, what is the best usage.  Nor is this all.  Sense and memory must be keen, and tempered to retain their edge and hold, in spite of any difficulties which the subject may present.  To understand things exactly as they are; to discern the differences by which they may be distinguished, and the resemblances by which they ought to be classified; to know, through the proper evidences of truth, that our ideas, or conceptions, are rightly conformable to the nature, properties, and relations, of the objects of which we think; to see how that which is complex may be resolved into its elements, and that which is simple may enter into combination; to observe how that which is consequent may be traced to its cause, and that which is regular be taught by rule; to learn from the custom of speech the proper connexion between words and ideas, so as to give to the former a just application, to the latter an adequate expression, and to things a just description; to have that penetration which discerns what terms, ideas, or things, are definable, and therefore capable of being taught, and what must be left to the teaching of nature:  these are the essential qualifications for him who would form good definitions; these are the elements of that accuracy and comprehensiveness of thought, to which allusion has been made, and which are characteristic of “the first and highest philosophy.”

3.  Again, with reference to the cultivation of the mind, I would add:  To observe accurately the appearances of things, and the significations of words; to learn first principles first, and proceed onward in such a manner that every new truth may help to enlighten and strengthen the understanding; and thus to comprehend gradually, according to our capacity, whatsoever may be brought within the scope of human intellect:—­to do these things, I say, is, to ascend by sure steps, so far as we may, from the simplest elements of science—­which, in fact, are our own, original, undefinable notices of things—­towards the very topmost height of human wisdom and knowledge.  The ancient saying, that truth lies hid, or in the bottom of a well, must not be taken without qualification; for “the first and highest philosophy” has many principles which even a child may understand.  These several suggestions, the first of which the Baron de Puffendorf thought not unworthy to introduce his great work on the Law of Nature and of Nations, the reader, if he please, may bear in mind, as he peruses the following digest of the laws and usages of speech.