[133] The modifications which belong to the different parts of speech consist chiefly of the inflections or changes to which certain words are subject.  But I use the term sometimes in a rather broader sense, as including not only variations of words, but, in certain instances, their original forms, and also such of their relations as serve to indicate peculiar properties.  This is no questionable license in the use of the term; for when the position of a word modifies its meaning, or changes its person or case, this effect is clearly a grammatical modification, though there be no absolute inflection.  Lord Kames observes, “That quality, which distinguishes one genus, one species, or even one individual, from an other, is termed a modification:  thus the same particular that is termed a property or quality, when considered as belonging to an individual, or a class of individuals, is termed a modification, when considered as distinguishing the individual or the class from an other.”—­Elements of Criticism, Vol. ii, p. 392.

[134] Wells, having put the articles into the class of adjectives, produces authority as follows:  “’The words a or an, and the, are reckoned by some grammarians a separate part of speech; but, as they in all respects come under the definition of the adjective, it is unnecessary, as well as improper, to rank them as a class by themselves.’—­Cannon.”  To this he adds, “The articles are also ranked with adjectives by Priestley, E. Oliver, Bell, Elphinston, M’Culloch, D’Orsey, Lindsay, Joel, Greenwood.  Smetham, Dalton, King, Hort, Buchanan, Crane, J. Russell, Frazee, Cutler, Perley, Swett, Day.  Goodenow, Willard, Robbins, Felton, Snyder, Butler, S. Barrett, Badgley, Howe, Whiting, Davenport, Fowle, Weld, and others.”—­Wells’s School Gram., p. 69.  In this way, he may have made it seem to many, that, after thorough investigation, he had decided the point discreetly, and with preponderance of authority.  For it is claimed as a “peculiar merit” of this grammar, that, “Every point of practical importance is thoroughly investigated, and reference is carefully made to the researches of preceding writers, in all cases which admit of being determined by weight of authority.”—­WILLIAM RUSSELL, on the cover.  But, in this instance, as in sundry others, wherein he opposes the more common doctrine, and cites concurrent authors, both he and all his authorities are demonstrably to the wrong.  For how can they be right, while reason, usage, and the prevailing opinion, are still against them?  If we have forty grammars which reject, the articles as a part of speech, we have more than twice as many which recognize them as such; among which are those of the following authors:  viz., Adam, D. Adams, Ainsworth, Alden, Alger, W. Allen, Ash, Bacon, Barnard, Beattie, Beck, Bicknell, Bingham, Blair, J.