Principles never alter.—­They should be known.—­Grammar a most important branch of science.—­Spoken and written Language.—­Idea of a thing.—­How expressed.—­An example.—­Picture writing.—­An anecdote.—­Ideas expressed by actions.—­Principles of spoken and written Language.—­Apply universally.—­Two examples.—­English language.—­Foreign words.—­Words in science.—­New words.—­How formed.

We now come to take a nearer view of language as generally understood by grammar.  But we shall have no occasion to depart from the principles already advanced, for there is existing in practice nothing which may not be accounted for in theory; as there can be no effect without an efficient cause to produce it.

We may, however, long remain ignorant of the true explanation of the principles involved; but the fault is ours, and not in the things themselves.  The earth moved with as much grandeur and precision around its axis and in its orbit before the days of Gallileo Gallilei, when philosophers believed it flat and stationary, as it has done since.  So the great principles on which depends the existence and use of all language are permanent, and may be correctly employed by those who have never examined them; but this does not prove that to be ignorant is better than to be wise.  We may have taken food all our days without knowing much of the process by which it is converted into nourishment and incorporated into our bodies, without ever having heard of delutition chymification, chylification, or even digestion, as a whole; but this is far from convincing me that the knowledge of these things is unimportant, or that ignorance of them is not the cause of much disease and suffering among mankind.  And it is, or should be, the business of the physiologist to explain these things, and show the great practical benefit resulting from a general knowledge of them.  So the grammarian should act as a sort of physiologist of language.  He should analyze all its parts and show how it is framed together to constitute a perfect whole.

Instead of exacting of you a blind submission to a set of technical expressions, and arbitrary rules, I most urgently exhort you to continue, with unremitting assiduity, your inquiries into the reason and propriety of the positions which may be taken.  It is the business of philosophy, not to meddle with things to direct how they should be, but to account for them and their properties and relations as they are.  So it is the business of grammar to explain language as it exists in use, and exhibit the reason why it is used thus, and what principles must be observed to employ it correctly in speaking and writing.  This method is adopted to carry out the principles already established, and show their adaptation to the wants of the community, and how they may be correctly and successfully employed.  Grammar considered in this light forms a department in the science of the mind by no means unimportant.  And it can