erwoven with all else that is known,
believed, learned, or spoken of among men, that to determine its own
peculiar principles with due distinctness, seems to be one of the most
difficult points of a grammarian's duty.

2. From misapprehension, narrowness of conception, or improper bias, in
relation to this point, many authors have started wrong; denounced others
with intemperate zeal; departed themselves from sound doctrine; and
produced books which are disgraced not merely by occasional oversights, but
by central and radical errors. Hence, too, have sprung up, in the name of
grammar, many unprofitable discussions, and whimsical systems of teaching,
calculated rather to embarrass than to inform the student. Mere collisions
of opinion, conducted without any acknowledged standard to guide the
judgement, never tend to real improvement. Grammar is unquestionably a
branch of that universal philosophy by which the thoroughly educated mind
is enlightened to see all things aright; for philosophy, in this sense of
the term, is found in everything. Yet, properly speaking, the true
grammarian is not a philosopher, nor can any man strengthen his title to
the former character by claiming the latter; and it is certain, that a most
disheartening proportion of what in our language has been published under
the name of Philosophic Grammar, is equally remote from philosophy, from
grammar, and from common sense.

3. True grammar is founded on the authority of reputable custom; and that
custom, on the use which men make of their reason. The proofs of what is
right are accumulative, and on many points there can be no dispute, because
our proofs from the best usage, are both obvious and innumerable. On the
other hand, the evidence of what is wrong is rather demonstrative; for when
we would expose a particular error, we exhibit it in contrast with the
established principle which it violates. He who formed the erroneous
sentence, has in this case no alternative, but either to acknowledge the
solecism, or to deny the authority of the rule. There are disputable
principles in grammar, as there are moot points in law; but this
circumstance affects no settled usage in either; and every person of sense
and taste will choose to express himself in the way least liable to
censure. All are free indeed from positive constraint on their phraseology;
for we do not speak or write by statutes. But the ground of instruction
assumed in grammar, is similar to th