I trust I have now said enough on the general principles of language as applied to things.  In the next lecture I will come down to a sort of bird’s eye view of grammar.  But my soul abhors arbitrary rules so devoutly, I can make no promises how long I will continue in close communion with set forms of speech.  I love to wander too well to remain confined to one spot, narrowed up in the limits fixed by others.  Freedom is the empire of the mind; it abjures all fetters, all slavery.  It kneels at the altar of virtue and worships at the shrine of truth.  No obstacles should be thrown in the way of its progress.  No limits should be set to it but those of the Almighty.

LECTURE IV.

ON NOUNS.

Nouns defined.—­Things.—­Qualities of matter.—­Mind.—­Spiritual beings.—­Qualities of mind.—­How learned.—­Imaginary things.—­ Negation.—­Names of actions.—­Proper nouns.—­Characteristic names.—­Proper nouns may become common.

Your attention is, this evening, invited to the first divisions of words, called Nouns.  This is a most important class, and as such deserves our particular notice.

    Nouns are the names of things.

The word noun is derived from the Latin nomen, French nom.  It means name.  Hence the definition above given.

In grammar it is employed to distinguish that class of words which name things, or stand as signs or representatives of things.

We use the word thing in its broadest sense, including every possible entity; every being, or thing, animate or inanimate, material or immaterial, real or imaginary, physical, moral, or intellectual.  It is the noun of the Saxon thincan or thingian, to think; and is used to express every conceivable object of thought, in whatever form or manner presented to the human mind.

Every word employed to designate things, or name them, is to be ranked in the class called nouns, or names.  You have only to determine whether a word is used thus, to learn whether it belongs to this or some other class of words.  Here let me repeat: 

1.  Things exist. 2.  We conceive ideas of things. 3.  We use sounds or signs to communicate these ideas to others. 4.  We denominate the class of words thus used, nouns.

Perhaps I ought to stop here, or pass to another topic.  But as these lectures are intended to be so plain that all can understand my meaning, I must indulge in a few more remarks before advancing farther.

In addition to individual, tangible objects, we conceive ideas of the qualities of things, and give names to such qualities, which become nouns.  Thus, the hardness of iron, the heat of fire, the color of a rose, the bitterness of gall, the error of grammars.  The following may serve to make my views more plain.  Take two tumblers, the one half filled with water, the other with milk; mix them together.  You can now talk of the milk in the water, or the water in the milk.  Your ideas are distinct, tho the objects are so intimately blended, that they can not be separated.  So with the qualities of things.