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• Errata—vol. VIII.
• Chrestomathia: Being a Collection of Papers, Explanatory of the Design of an Institution, Proposed to Be Set On Foot Under the Name of the Chrestomathic Day School, Or Chrestomathic School, For the Extension of the New System of Instruction to the High
• Introduction By the Editor.
• First Preface to the First Edition.
• Second Preface to the First Edition.
• Chrestomathic (a) Instruction Tables. Table I.
• Chrestomathic Instruction Tables. Table II.
• Appendix. No. I.
• Appendix.—no. II.
• Appendix.—no. III.
• Appendix.—no. IV.: Essay On Nomenclature and Classification. *
• Appendix.—no. V.: Sources of Motion.
• Appendix.—no. VI.
• Appendix.—no. VII.
• Appendix.—no. VIII.
• Appendix No. IX.
• A Fragment On Ontology; Now First Published, From the Manuscripts of Jeremy Bentham.
• Note By the Editor.
• Introduction.
• Chapter I.: Classification of Entities.
• Chapter II.: Fictitious Entities Classified.
• Essay On Logic: Now First Published, From the Manuscripts of Jeremy Bentham.
• Note By the Editor.
• Introduction.
• Chapter I.: Logic—what ?
• Chapter II.: Logic, Its Characteristics.
• Chapter III.: Præcognita: Or, Preliminary and General Indications Concerning Logic, According to the Aristotelians.
• Chapter IV.: Of Aristotle’s Predicaments and Postpredicaments.
• Chapter V. *: Mode of Discussion.
• Chapter VI.: Relation of Logic to the Business of Human Life In General, and Therein to Arts and Sciences, I. E. to Disciplines.
• Chapter VII.: Clearness In Discourse, How to Produce It? and Hence of Exposition.
• Chapter VIII.: Of Division.
• Chapter IX.: Of Methodization, Otherwise Termed Arrangement. † ‡
• Chapter X.: Of the Art of Invention.
• Appendix.—a.: Phenomena of the Human Mind.
• Appendix B. Division of Art and Science. †
• Essay On Language; Now First Published, From the Manuscripts of Jeremy Bentham.
• Note By the Editor.
• Introduction.
• Chapter I.: Modes Or Forms of Which Discourse Or Language Has Been Found Susceptible, Viz. Audible, Visible, and Their Respective Substitutes.
• Chapter II.: Uses of Language.
• Chapter III.: Operations Which, In the Character of an Art, Are Performable In Relation to Discourse, Or Language In General.
• Chapter IV.: Properties Desirable In a Language.
• Chapter V.: Of Improvement Considered As Applicable to Language, Or the Means By Which, In So Far As the Particular Language Employed By an Individual Admits of the Possession of Them, the Properties Desirable In Language May, On Each Occasion, Be Secured
• Chapter VI.: Analytical View of the Matter of Thought and Internal Action; Correspondent View of the Matter of Language.
• Fragments On Universal Grammar; Now First Published, From the Manuscripts of Jeremy Bentham.
• Introduction.
• Chapter I.: Definitions.
• Chapter II.: Uses of Universal Grammar.
• Chapter III.: Of the Parts of Speech.
• Chapter IV.: Of the Noun-substantive.
• Chapter V.: Of the Adjective.
• Chapter VI.: Of Pronouns. *
• Chapter VII.: Of Verbs.
• Chapter VIII.: Of Government and Concord.
• Chapter IX.: Of Prepositions, Adverbs, and Conjunctions.
• Chapter X.: Of Interjections.
• Tracts On Poor Laws and Pauper Management.
• Note By the Editor On the Tracts On Poor Laws.
• Situation and Relief of the Poor.
• Observations On the Pauper Population Table Hereunto Annexed.
• Outline of the Non-adult Value Table.
• Outline of a Work Entitled Pauper Management Improved.
• Book I.: Political Arrangements.
• Book II.: Plan of Management.
• Book III.: Collateral Benefits.
• Book IV.: Pauper Comforts.
• Observations On the Poor Bill. Introduced By the Rt. Hon. William Pitt (feb, 1797). : Chapter I. Introduction
• Chapter II.: 1. Under-ability, Or Supplemental-wages Clause.
• Chapter III.: 2. Family-relief, Or Extra-children Clause.
• Chapter IV.: 3. Cow-money Clause.
• Chapter V.: 4. Relief-extension, Or Opulence-relief Clause.
• Chapter VI.: 5. Apprenticeship Clause.
• Three Tracts Relative to Spanish and Portuguese Affairs; With a Continual Eye to English Ones.
• Advertisement For Tract the First and Second; of This Second * Publication, Namely, On the Then Proposed Spanish House of Lords. ( Anno 1820.)
• Tract, No. I.: Letter to the Spanish Nation On a Then ( Anno 1820) Proposed House of Lords.
• Advertisement to Tract the Second.
• Tract, No. II.: Observations On Judge Advocate Hermosa’s Panegyric On Judicial Delays; On the Occasion of the Impunity As Yet Given By Him to the Loyal Authors of the Cadiz Massacre, a Counterpart to the Manchester Massacre; Explaining, Moreover, the Effe
• Advertisement to Tract the Third.
• Tract, No. III.: Letter to the Portuguese Nation, On Antiquated Constitutions; On the Spanish Constitution Considered As a Whole, and On Certain Defects Observable In It; In Particular, the Immutability-enacting, Or Infallibility-assuming, the Non-re-elig
• Letters to Count Toreno, On the Proposed Penal Code, Delivered In By the Legislation Committee of the Spanish Cortes, April 25th, 1821.
• Advertisement.
• Letter I.
• Letter II.: On the Course Taken By the Legislative Committee, to Prevent, Otherwise Than By Punishment Eo Nomine, the Free Examination of Their Proposed Penal Code.
• Letter III.
• Letter IV.
• Letter V.
• Letter VI.
• Letter VII.
• Supplemental Advertisement.
• Securities Against Misrule, Adapted to a Mahommedan State, and Prepared With Particular Reference to Tripoli In Barbary.
• Note By the Editor.
• Chapter I.: Preliminary Explanations.
• Chapter II.: Public Opinion the Sole Remedy—parallel Between the Public-opinion Tribunal and the Official Judicatories.
• Chapter III.: Notification and Publication In Reference to Securities.
• Chap. IV.: The Securities In Detail.
• Part I.: Securities In Favour of the Nation Considered In the Aggregate.
• Part II.: Securities In Favour of Individuals.
• Chapter V.: Hopes of Success For Any Project Having Such Securities For Its End.

CHAPTER IV.

OF THE NOUN-SUBSTANTIVE.

Section I.

A Noun-Substantive—what?

The name of an entity, real or fictitious; real, as bodies of all sorts; fictitious, as motions, modifications of motions, qualities, modes or manners, powers, &c., is a noun-substantive.

In every language it exhibits itself in various forms,—some of them serving to give intimation of some relation of the nature of position or motion belonging to the entity; others, serving to represent sex as belonging or not belonging to it; others, to designate the number of those entities which are in question, but without any other distinction in regard to number, besides that between one and every greater number, or at most, as in the Greek, between one and two, and any greater number.

Section II.

Of Case.

An entity, be it what it may, is susceptible of a multitude of relations as towards other entities; when it is viewed in the character of the subject, or the predicate of a proposition, there is continual occasion for giving expression to those relations. In so far as for the giving expression to any such relation, a particular modification is given to the word by which the entity in question is designated, that word is thereby said to be put into a certain case.§

For the production of this effect two courses have been employed. One of them consists in the inserting into the texture of the proposition, a separate word appointed for that purpose. This may be termed the external course or method. The other consists in some change made in the letters, of which the word itself, of which the relation to be expressed is composed: this may be termed the internal method.

The external course seems the most natural. It seems to be that which would be the first to occur and to be employed. For giving expression to the principal subject, a separate term has been employed. By the same reason, and the same habit by which this mode of designation was suggested, in this instance, it seems but natural that this same mode of designation should be suggested in the other instance.

After having, for some time, been employed in company, though not in union with the sign of the subject, it was natural enough that insensibly the sign of the relation should come to be considered as an inseparable part of it, and then be put in union with it.

In the case of some of the most obvious relations, those which there is most frequent occasion to bring to view, this expedient might serve. But, as the field of language came to enlarge itself, the complication and embarrassment that would be produced by the giving such a multitude of modifications to the same word, were the expedient applied to every relation which there would be occasion to bring to view, set limits to the practice.

In the instance of some of these relations, the internal method, or course, continued thus to be employed. But, in the instance of other relations, the external method was preserved; and for every such relation that had been distinguished from the rest, a separate sign continued to be employed: being in the order in which the words of the sentence were arranged, most commonly put immediately before one of the two words employed as the names of the entities, between which the relation was represented as having place, it thus acquired the name of a preposition.

This course, could the effects of it have been generally foreseen, this union would never have been generally adopted. In the course of pronunciation, somehow or other it happened that the termination, which was regarded as suiting this or that principal word, was not found suitable to this or that other principal word. To one class of words, one set of terminations came thus to be attached; to another class of words, another set of terminations,—for the giving expression to one and the same idea, a great variety of signs. To these different sets of terminations were given the name of declensions.

From all these inconveniences, the English language is almost, if not altogether, free. For giving expression to these relations, with only one exception, it employs no other than the external mode. No declensions are to be found in it: from that source, that abundant source of useless and troublesome complication it stands wholly free.

Of the existence of one exception intimation has just been given. This exception is that which is constituted by the mode in which expression is given to the relation of possession: in the language of grammarians, to the possessive, or, as it was first styled, the Genitive case.* But of the sign employed for this purpose, such is the simplicity,—a single letter ’s,—and that on all occasions the same, that, not being applied in the instance of more cases or relations than this one, the internal mode is not productive of any sensible inconvenience. Applying itself to all noun-substantives without distinction, no particle of that useless system of complication, expressed by the word declension, is produced by it.

The nominative case expresses the subject of the proposition, the minor terminus, the subject in which the motion commences.

The accusative signifies the subject in which the motion terminates; it may be called the subject-expressing case,—“John, take the bread.” Bread is in the subject-expressing case.

The vocative† is an elliptical expression; if it stand alone, it is equivalent to an entire proposition including a verb in the imperative mood,—ex. gr., John! i. e. John come here; i. e. John attend; my will is—the cause of my speaking is, a desire that John may come, may attend.

Neither of these cases signifies situation, which is relation.

The other oblique cases signify situation, either quiescent, or the result of motion.

They consequently require separate terms (i. e. prepositions) to express the relation where the relation is not indicated by the termination.

In English, the preposition indicative of the genitive case is of;—this may be called the possession-expressing case.

The dative may be called the goal-expressing case,—“Give this loaf to Mary.” Mary is in the goal-expressing case: the case expressive of the terminus ad quem.

The ablative may be called the starting-post-expressing case,—“Take Thomas’ loaf from the oven.” The oven is, in the starting-post-expressing case, the case expressive of the terminus a quo, i. e. the thing, or event, from which it is desired, the motion desired shall commence.

Section III.

Of Gender.

Gender is the sign either of sex or the absence of it. Masculine and feminine of the two sexes: neuter of the absence of sex.

When the form given to a noun is that which causes it to be said to be of the masculine gender, an assertion which it expresses is, that the object of which the noun is the sign is of the male sex; and so, in the case of the feminine gender, of the female sex. When it is that which causes it to be said to be of the neuter gender, the assertion which it conveys is, that the object of which the noun is the sign is not of either sex.

Applied, as it is, to common names, this modification, wherever it is employed, is altogether an useless one, and not merely useless, but replete with absurdity and pregnant with inconvenience.

The English language is, in relation to this point, a perfect model. It attributes not, on this occasion, sex to any object that is not endowed with it. By the entire name, and not by any particular modification of the name, it attributes sex to such objects as are really endowed with that quality.

In the languages of classical antiquity, the Greek and the Latin, and in most modern languages that are chiefly derived from them, not to speak of others, in the form of the conjugational suffixes, and in that of the pronominal adjuncts, one or both, in speaking of the subject, be it what it may, a real or fictitious entity—if real, a thing or person,—intimation is given that it is of one or other, or neither, of the two sexes.

When true, the intimation thus given is superfluous, and it is useless when not true. Besides being superfluous and useless, it is a fertile source of confusion and indistinct and erroneous conception,—in every case a blemish and a nuisance.

Upon the conception and memory of the learner of the language it is a load, and that a very burthensome one.

Section IV.

Of Number.

A sign for the distinction of numbers,*i. e. of more than one from one alone, is, it has already been observed, indispensably necessary. In every instance, so that the purpose be but answered, the shorter the sign employed the better: and here so perpetually recurring is the demand for the distinction, brevity is of very particular importance. A single letter attached to the word by which the object is designated, when more than one of the sort is meant to be brought to view, is the shortest sign that can be employed. Shorter than a whole word employed on purpose, the instances excepted,—of which the number must necessarily be small, confined to the number of the vowels,—in which a word, consisting of no more letters than one, can, for such a purpose, be spared.

Here, then, is another point in respect of which the English language presents a model of perfection. To this purpose it allots a single letter; and, with the exception of a very few words, remains of the language in its earliest state,† this one letter serves for all words of this class,—on this head, as on the former, none of those declensions by which the Greek and the Latin are infested.

To the noun-substantive alone, and neither to the verb nor the noun-adjective, belongs, in the nature of the case, the affection or modification of plurality. It is only in the case of the substantive that the attaching to the word the sign of plurality can be of any use. Attached to the verb or even to the adjective, it is so much useless complication. Abel is a good boy. Cain and Abel are good boys. Here the adjective, when employed for giving expression to the plural number, or the state the adjective is in, differs not in any respect from the state it was in when employed for giving expression to the singular number. In Latin the adjective would, in the first case, be bonus, in the other case boni.

True, in the English, in the case where the persons meant are more than one, in the case of the verb, a word is employed different from that which is employed where one and no more is meant to be brought to view. But, even in English, some instances of superfluity in inflection may be found, and this is one of them. As by the noun-substantive alone the two numbers are sufficiently distinguished in other cases, so might they have been in this. For distinguishing the three classes of persons denoted by we, ye, and they, these pronouns serve of themselves, the verb being in the same letters in all three cases,—We love, ye love, they love. In the singular, indeed, the third person is in a different form;—not he love, but he loves. But, as we suffices to distinguish the first person from the third, in the plural, so might I have sufficed in the singular. Accordingly, in the subjunctive mood, which, in so far as it differs from the indicative, is an unnecessary one, love serves for the third person singular, and even for the second person singular, as well as for the first.

Every proposition in which the noun is in the plural number, is a complex one; and, as such, resolvable, at least in its origin, into a multitude of propositions, according to the number of the persons or things which occupy in it the station of subject or predicate, to which soever it be that that number is attributed.

When the number of these objects is determinate, the number of the simple propositions included in the complex one thus formed, will be exactly equal to the number of these objects, and so far no abstraction will necessarily have had place. When the number of these objects is altogether indeterminate, so, of consequence, must be the number of the simple propositions requisite to the constituting one equivalent to the supposed plural one.

Take the state of things when the primeval society consists of four persons, Cain and Abel being born to Adam and Eve. Applied to persons,—They are asleep, addressed by Eve to Adam, will have for its equivalent these two simple propositions, Cain is asleep—Abel is asleep. A sister, suppose, is born to them;—the numbers of simple propositions capable of being included in a pronoun-substantive of the first person, is now increased from two to three.

As soon as the plural becomes indefinite, abstraction is performed, the idea of a class is formed, an aggregate of which the individual elements are susceptible of continual change.

[§ ] The word case,—in Latin casus, a fall,—is a literal translation of the Greek πτωσις. From the Greek grammarians, Harris, in his Hermes, has given what may be called the archetypation of the word; i. e. he has brought to view the material image that has been employed for serving as a sign to the immaterial idea,—though the analogy be an extremely faint one.

[* ] In the singular number, besides the prepositional genitive, there is the inflectional formed as above by ’s, but in the plural the inflectional is wanting. The use of the inflectional form is its subserviency to, 1. Conciseness; 2. Clearness (viz. by preventing entanglement and ambiguity); 3. Impressiveness (in some cases.)

[† ] The vocative is expressed without a pronoun; O! may be added or not. Is it not a contraction for hear? In Latin from audio? In English either from the Latin, or from the French oyer which is from audio?

[* ] The first step in the track of abstraction is the use of the plural number. The singular and plural numbers might be referred to the head of cases; considered as a species of case indicative of two species of numbers, into which two species, the whole aggregate of numbers actually and possibly exemplified, is by these two appellations divided in the dichotomously exhaustive, or say exhaustively dichotomous mode.

[† ] Man, men; woman, women; child, children; brother, brethren; sisters not; the demand for the frequent mention of sisters coming later than that of the frequent mention of brothers.