young mind', in the sense of relating the abstract to its concrete, as we say the fury of the tiger.'

Adjective abstracts have the same meaning as the Adjective: 'justice' is the point or points of agreement of 'just' men and 'just' actions. The adjective presents the meaning in the most intelligible shape, because it directs us to the things that we should have to examine and compare in order to discover the meaning. Truth' is understood by enquiring into the peculiarities common to 'true assertions'. We can understand the abstract only through the concrete, and this the adjective brings before us.

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Use of Verb Abstracts as Common Nouns.

'A conversation' and 'conversations' mean special instances or occasions of conversing; and this is the general rule when the verbal abstracts are used as common nouns. 'Obligations' are special instances of being under obligation; ' debts' are special examples of being in debt. 'Feelings' are specific modes or exercises of the power of feeling. 'Reproaches' are particular acts of reproaching. 'Births' and deaths' are individual instances of being born and dying. 'Natures' may be regarded as a confined application of the abstract nature' to some particular cases; speaking of two individuals we say their natures' were different.

The liberty of converting such abstract words into class nouns is liable to abuse. We are apt to suppose that an abstract quality should not be declared of a plural subject without being itself made plural. I drink all your healths' is an example, and is inelegant from the awkwardness of making an abstract noun plural. We do not say 'I wish joys or happinesses to you all'. Their natures differ' would

be better 'They differ in nature'.

'Knowledge' has never been made a class noun, although Sir W. Hamilton has defended 'knowledges' in a particular application. Hence the following is a gross impropriety'Have you a knowledge of French ?' for 'do you know?'.

We should not say 'I have no knowledge of', 'I have not the smallest knowledge'; rather, 'I do not know', 'I do not know at all, or in any degree '.

'The

I doubt the propriety of the following sentence :contrast between polygamous birds, the males of which take no shares in rearing the offspring, and monogamous birds, the males of which take large shares in rearing them, supplies significant evidence'. It is not merely that the phrase 'take shares' has contracted a technical signification wholly unsuited to the writer's meaning, but that the verbal noun 'share', which is here abstract, need not be plural though the subject is plural; 'take no share', and 'take much share' would be allowable and an improvement. I should prefer 'do not share', and 'share largely', for reasons to be given afterwards.

MATERIAL NOUNS.

The constituents of the globe, the raw material of commerce, and many of the productions of manufactures, receive names that are permanently singular, that can take neither the indefinite article nor the plural form. Such are wood, bone, horn, flint, quartz, glass, crystal, diamond, ivory, sulphur, zinc, tin, steel, hair, lime, potash, starch, sugar, alcohol, jute, oakum, canvas, paper, gunpowder, timber, grass, hair, muscle.

There must be many hundreds of such words in the language. The larger portion of them adhere to the grammatical peculiarities now stated. Some of the commoner names become class nouns, and assume both the article and the plural. In parsing, such instances should be duly accounted for.

Additional examples. 'Water' is perhaps the most familiar of our nouns of material. It appears often enough in this character: water is usually liquid', 'water is essential to vegetation'. But we have such expressions as, 'the sound of many waters'; our fleet was ordered to the Greek waters'; 'the waters of Vichy', &c. ; ' some waters do not soften by boiling'; 'the goodness of a water depends on many causes'.

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There are two meanings indicated in these examples: The one is portions or masses of water; the other is kinds, species or varieties of water.

'Airs' are different kinds of air.

'Salt' was originally the salt of the sea, and still bears that meaning; the word is also a common noun, ‘salts', ‘a salt', for many substances resembling the prototype, seasalt.

'Wood' is a material name. It takes a plural to signify plantations of timber; and it has a less familiar use to signify species of wood.

Coal', the material noun, is more frequently found in the plural coals', because we use it broken up in pieces. This deviation from the propriety of a material noun is scarcely called for; we might use the singular form 'coal' on most occasions; bring some coal' is more refined than 'bring coals'.

'Peat' is elaborately cut into equal shapes, and attention is thereby called to the plurality of the masses; we should in consequence expect the noun to be in use as a class noun— a peat, peats'.

We have 'iron' and 'irons' ('too many irons in the fire '), 'lead' and 'leads', 'tin' and 'tins', copper' and 'coppers', in all which the material noun is made a class noun to denote certain utensils made of the metals. This is a considerable stretch of irregularity; seeing that accident decides what the things shall be, and that the same name may mean very different objects, as in the case with 'irons' and 'leads'. Such names have a narrow technical use, and can scarcely be considered as a part of the universal vocabulary.

'Sands' are grains of sand, a meaning never mistaken. Less commonly, do we understood varieties or kinds of sand. 'Dust' is a persistent and exclusive noun of material; the plural 'dusts' is unknown; the singular occurs in one proverbial utterance, kicking up a dust', the idea being a dust cloud. 'Ashes' is a false plural, and a regular noun of material. The singular form ‘ash', with the same meaning, has obtained currency. Chemists speak

of potash, pearlash, soda-ash, black ash', as well as 'ash' itself; we have also 'ash-coloured' and ashpit'; while, in general literature, a person sometimes knocks the ash of his cigar into the stove'.

'Money' and 'cash' may be viewed as of the present class. Although the form passes from the valuable metals to written paper, which is unsubstantial and merely symbolical, we still regard it as a thing of matter, and as correctly designated by a material noun. 'Moneys', the plural is in use for sums of money; the corresponding singular a money' is not in use.

Coin' is probably in its origin a class noun, a 'coin', coins'. The material noun, 'coin', is the secondary or derived form. This course is probably not unusual. We may suppose that 'cake' was originally a class noun, ‘a cake, cakes'; and that the name was thence transferred to express the material noun without reference to its divisions or pieces.

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Snow' is seldom a class noun ; figurative and exceptional.

the snows of years' is

'Poison' is in full use both as a material and a class noun. 'Poison' means the power of poisoning generally; 'poisons' are the several poisonous substances.

In this last example, as in various others, a thin line divides the material noun from the abstract noun; but even when there is considerable doubt, the decision is not essential to Grammar; the grammatical usages being the same for both kinds. 'Tragedy' and 'comedy' are material or abstract nouns, very much as we please; both have class nouns corresponding—' tragedies', 'comedies '-meaning special embodiments of what the general words signify. In such instances, we had better incline to the designation Abstract. 'Disease', 'fever', &c., may be regarded as abstract nouns.

THE PRONOUN.

In the Introduction, I discussed the mode of defining the Pronoun. I shall now consider the Classification of the Pronouns, and give examples of the more important constructions wherein they play a part.

The first class commonly recognised is the PERSONAL PRONOUNS, those applicable to Persons. It will be seen that in the Pronouns, although not in the Nouns, grammar requires the distinction between Persons and Things.

There are said to be three Persons, and three sets of personal pronouns. This needs some qualification, as will

appear on examining the details.

The pronouns said to be of the First Person, 'I', 'we', apply only to persons. Only a person can act as a speaker or unite with others in making a declaration.

Those of the Second Person, 'thou', 'you', 'ye', are also confined to persons, who alone can be intelligibly addressed.

Under the Third Person, 'he', 'she', 'it', 'they', we have a mixture of persons and inanimate things. For, although speakers and hearers must have personality, the matters spoken about are both persons and things. Here, then, the designation 'personal pronoun' ceases to be applicable; and if we would circumscribe or define the group with precision, we must seize hold of some other circuinstance. Hence the proposal, by Dr. Latham and others, to call them the Demonstrative pronouns. They serve to point at the subjects of discourse between two partiesspeaker and hearer; and they perform this function along with the adjectives called Demonstrative—'this', 'that', 'these' those '. 6 When a subject just mentioned is referred to by he' or 'it', the meaning is as truly demonstrative as when we use the phrase this man' or 'that matter'; the difference consists only in the greater force and explicitness of the phrase. And in assigning the class of 'he' and 'she', though their reference is to persons, the