as whitish, greenish, &c., there will be found no actual measure, or inherent degree of any quality, to which the simple form of the adjective is not applicable; or which, by the help of intensive adverbs of a positive character, it may not be made to express; and that, too, without becoming either comparative or superlative, in the technical sense of those terms.  Thus very white, exceedingly white, perfectly white, are terms quite as significant as whiter and whitest, if not more so.  Some grammarians, observing this, and knowing that the Romans often used their superlative in a sense merely intensive, as altissimus for very high, have needlessly divided our English superlative into two, “the definite, and the indefinite;” giving the latter name to that degree which we mark by the adverb very, and the former to that which alone is properly called the superlative.  Churchill does this:  while, (as we have seen above,) in naming the degrees, he pretends to prefer “what has been established by long custom.”—­New Gram., p. 231.  By a strange oversight also, he failed to notice, that this doctrine interferes with his scheme of five degrees, and would clearly furnish him with six:  to which if he had chosen to add the “imperfect degree” of Dr. Webster, (as whitish, greenish, &c.,) which is recognized by Johnson, Murray, and others, he might have had seven.  But I hope my readers will by-and-by believe there is no need of more than three.

OBS. 9.—­The true nature of the Comparative degree is this:  it denotes either some excess or some relative deficiency of the quality, when one thing or party is compared with an other, in respect to what is in both:  as, “Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”—­1 Cor., i, 25.  “Few languages are, in fact, more copious than the English.”—­Blair’s Rhet., p. 87.  “Our style is less compact than that of the ancients.”—­Ib., p. 88.  “They are counted to him less than nothing and vanity.”—­Isaiah, xl, 17.  As the comparatives in a long series are necessarily many, and some of them higher than others, it may be asked, “How can the comparative degree, in this case, be merely ‘that which exceeds the positive?’” Or, as our common grammarians prompt me here to say, “May not the comparative degree increase or lessen the comparative, in signification?” The latter form of the question they may answer for themselves; remembering that the comparative may advance from the comparative, step by step, from the second article in the series to the utmost.  Thus, three is a higher or greater number than two; but four is higher than three; five, than four; and so on, ad infinitum.  My own form of the question I answer thus:  “The highest of the higher is not higher than the rest are higher, but simply higher than they are high.”