ial object of the comparison. While these critics allow
only two degrees, we might in fact with more propriety say, that there are
five: 1, the quality in its standard state, or positive degree; as _wise_:
2, in a higher state, or the comparative ascending; _more wise_: 3, in a
lower, or the comparative descending; _less wise_: 4, in the highest state,
or superlative ascending; _most wise_: 5, in the lowest state, or
superlative descending; _least wise._ All grammarians, however, agree about
the things themselves, and the forms used to express them; though they
differ about the names, by which these forms should be called: and as those
names are practically best, which tend least to perplex the learner, I see
no good reason here for deviating from what has been established by long
custom."--_Churchill's Gram._, p. 231.

OBS. 2.--Churchill here writes plausibly enough, but it will be seen, both
from his explanation, and from the foregoing definitions of the degrees of
comparison, that there are but three. The comparative and the superlative
may each be distinguishable into the ascending and the descending, as often
as we prefer the adverbial form to the regular variation of the adjective
itself; but this imposes no necessity of classing and defining them
otherwise than simply as the comparative and the superlative. The
assumption of two comparatives and two superlatives, is not only contrary
to the universal practice of the teachers of grammar; but there is this
conclusive argument against it--that the regular method of comparison has
no degrees of diminution, and the form which has such degrees, is _no
inflection_ of the adjective. If there is any exception, it is in the
words, _small, smaller, smallest_, and _little, less, least_. But of the
smallness or littleness, considered abstractly, these, like all others, are
degrees of increase, and not of diminution. _Smaller_ is as completely
opposite to _less small_, as _wiser_ is to _less wise_. _Less_ itself is a
comparative descending, only when it diminishes some _other_ quality: _less
little_, if the phrase were proper, must needs be nearly equivalent to
_greater_ or _more_. Churchill, however, may be quite right in the
following remark: "The comparative ascending of an adjective, and the
comparative descending of an adjective expressing the opposite quality, are
often considered synonymous, by those who do not discriminate nicely
between ideas. But _less imprudent_ does