,"--"By _those means_," with
reference to more than one. Dr. Johnson says the use of _means_ for _mean_
is not very grammatical; and, among his examples for the true use of the
word, he has the following: "Pamela's noble heart would needs gratefully
make known the valiant _mean_ of her safety."--_Sidney._ "Their virtuous
conversation was a _mean_ to work the heathens' conversion."--_Hooker._
"Whether his wits should by that _mean_ have been taken from him."--_Id._
"I'll devise a _mean_ to draw the Moor out of the way."--_Shak._ "No place
will please me so, no _mean_ of death."--_Id._ "Nature is made better by no
_mean_, but nature makes that _mean._"--_Id._ Dr. Lowth also questioned the
propriety of construing _means_ as singular, and referred to these same
authors as authorities for preferring the regular form. Buchanan insists
that _means_ is right in the plural only; and that, "The singular should be
used as perfectly analogous; by this _mean_, by that _mean_."--_English
Syntax_, p. 103. Lord Kames, likewise, appears by his practice to have been
of the same opinion: "Of this the child must be sensible intuitively, for
it has no other _mean_ of knowledge."--_Elements of Criticism_, Vol. i, p.
357. "And in both the same _mean_ is employed."--_Ib._ ii, 271. Caleb
Alexander, too, declares "_this means_," "_that means_." and "_a means_,"
to be "ungrammatical."--_Gram._, p. 58. But common usage has gone against
the suggestions of these critics, and later grammarians have rather
confirmed the irregularity, than attempted to reform it.

OBS. 34.--Murray quotes sixteen good authorities to prove that means may be
singular; but whether it _ought_ to be so or not, is still a disputable
point. Principle is for the regular word _mean_, and good practice favours
the irregularity, but is still divided. Cobbett, to the disgrace of
grammar, says, "_Mean_, as a noun, is _never used in the singular_. It,
like some other words, has broken loose from all principle and rule. By
universal consent, it _is become always a plural_, whether used with
_singular or plural_ pronouns and articles, _or not_."--_E. Gram._, p. 144.
This is as ungrammatical, as it is untrue. Both mean and means are
sufficiently authorized in the singular: "The prospect which by this mean
is opened to you."--_Melmoth's Cicero_. "Faith in this doctrine never
terminates in itself, but is _a mean_, to holiness as an end."--_Dr.
Chalmers, Sermons_, p. v. "The _mean_ of basely