OBS. 1.—­No other words are so often employed as the articles.  And, by reason of the various and very frequent occasions on which these definitives are required, no words are oftener misapplied; none, oftener omitted or inserted erroneously.  I shall therefore copiously illustrate both their uses and their abuses; with the hope that every reader of this volume will think it worth his while to gain that knowledge which is requisite to the true use of these small but important words.  Some parts of the explanation, however, must be deferred till we come to Syntax.

OBS. 2.—­With the attempts of Tooke, Dalton, Webster, Cardell, Fowle, Wells,[134] Weld, Butler Frazee, Perley, Mulligan, Pinneo, S. S. Greene, and other writers, to degrade the article from its ancient rank among the parts of speech, no judicious reader, duly acquainted with the subject, can, I think, be well pleased.  An article is not properly an “adjective,” as they would have it to be; but it is a word of a peculiar sort—­a customary index to the sense of nouns.  It serves not merely to show the extent of signification, in which nouns are to be taken, but is often the principal, and sometimes the only mark, by which a word is known to have the sense and construction of a noun.  There is just as much reason to deny and degrade the Greek or French article, (or that of any other language,) as the English; and, if those who are so zealous to reform our the, an, and a into adjectives, cared at all to appear consistent in the view of Comparative or General Grammar, they would either set about a wider reformation or back out soon from the pettiness of this.

OBS. 3.—­First let it be understood, that an or a is nearly equivalent in meaning to the numeral adjective one, but less emphatic; and that the is nearly equivalent in meaning to the pronominal adjective that or those, but less emphatic.  On some occasions, these adjectives may well be substituted for the articles; but not generally.  If the articles were generally equivalent to adjectives, or even if they were generally like them, they would be adjectives; but, that adjectives may occasionally supply their places, is no argument at all for confounding the two parts of speech.  Distinctions must be made, where differences exist; and, that a, an, and the, do differ considerably from the other words which they most resemble, is shown even by some who judge “the distinctive name of article to be useless.”  See Crombie’s Treatise, Chap. 2.  The articles therefore must be distinguished, not only from adjectives, but from each other.  For, though both are articles, each is an index sui generis; the one definite, the other indefinite.  And as the words that and one cannot often be interchanged without a difference of meaning, so the definite article and the indefinite are seldom,