m, in the day of judgement, than for thee."--_Matt._, xi, 24. Now,
although [Greek: anektoteron], _more tolerable_, is in itself a good
comparative, who would dare infer from this text, that in the day of
judgement Capernaum shall fare _tolerably_, and Sodom, _still better_?
There is much reason to think, that the essential nature of these
grammatical degrees has not been well understood by those who have
heretofore pretended to explain them. If we except those few approximations
to sensible qualities, which are signified by such words as _whitish,
greenish, &c._, there will be found no actual measure, or inherent degree
of any quality, to which the simple form of the adjective is not
applicable; or which, by the help of intensive adverbs of a positive
character, it may not be made to express; and that, too, without becoming
either comparative or superlative, in the technical sense of those terms.
Thus _very white, exceedingly white, perfectly white_, are terms quite as
significant as _whiter_ and _whitest_, if not more so. Some grammarians,
observing this, and knowing that the Romans often used their superlative in
a sense merely intensive, as _altissimus_ for _very high_, have needlessly
divided our English superlative into two, "_the definite_, and the
_indefinite_;" giving the latter name to that degree which we mark by the
adverb _very_, and the former to that which alone is properly called the
superlative. Churchill does this: while, (as we have seen above,) in naming
the degrees, he pretends to prefer "what has been established by long
custom."--_New Gram._, p. 231. By a strange oversight also, he failed to
notice, that this doctrine interferes with his scheme of _five_ degrees,
and would clearly furnish him with _six_: to which if he had chosen to add
the "_imperfect degree_" of Dr. Webster, (as _whitish, greenish, &c._,)
which is recognized by Johnson, Murray, and others, he might have had
_seven_. But I hope my readers will by-and-by believe there is _no need_ of
more than _three_.

OBS. 9.--The true nature of the Comparative degree is this: it denotes
either some _excess_ or some _relative deficiency_ of the quality, when one
thing or party is compared with an other, in respect to what is in both:
as, "Because the foolishness of God is _wiser_ than men; and the weakness
of God is _stronger_ than men."--_1 Cor._, i, 25. "Few languages are, in
fact, _more copious_ than the English."--_Blair's Rhet._, p. 87. "Our