stand immediately for persons that are, in general, sufficiently known
without being named; (_I_ meaning _the speaker_, and _thou, the hearer_;)
their antecedents, or nouns, are therefore generally _understood_. The
other personal pronouns, also, are sometimes taken in a general and
demonstrative sense, to denote persons or things not previously mentioned;
as, "_He_ that hath knowledge, spareth his words."--_Bible_. Here _he_ is
equivalent to _the man_, or _the person_. "The care of posterity is most in
_them_ that have no posterity."--_Bacon_. Here _them_ is equivalent to
_those persons_. "How far do you call _it_ to such a place?"--_Priestley's
Gram._, p. 85. Here _it_, according to Priestley, is put for _the
distance_. "For the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and _they_ should
seek the law at his mouth."--_Malachi_, ii, 7. Here _they_ is put
indefinitely for _men_ or _people_. So _who_ and _which_, though called
relatives, do not always relate to a noun or pronoun going before them; for
_who_ may be a direct substitute for _what person_; and _which_ may mean
_which person_, or _which thing_: as, "And he that was healed, wist not
_who_ it was."--_John_, v, 13. That is, "_The man who_ was healed, knew not
_what person_ it was." "I care not _which_ you take; they are so much
alike, one cannot tell _which_ is _which_."

OBS. 4.--A pronoun with which a question is asked, usually stands for some
person or thing unknown to the speaker; the noun, therefore, cannot occur
before it, but may be used after it or in place of it. Examples: "In the
grave, _who_ shall give thee thanks?"--_Ps._, vi, 5. Here the word _who_ is
equivalent to _what person_, taken interrogatively. "Which of you
convinceth me of sin?"--_John_, viii, 46. That is, "_Which man_ of you?"
"Master, _what_ shall we do?"--_Luke_, iii, 12. That is, "_What act_, or
_thing_?" These solutions, however, convert _which_ and _what_ into
_adjectives_: and, in fact, as they have no inflections for the numbers and
cases, there is reason to think them at all times essentially such. We call
them pronouns, to avoid the inconvenience of supposing and supplying an
infinite multitude of ellipses. But _who_, though often equivalent (as
above) to an adjective and a noun, is never itself used adjectively; it is
always a pronoun.

OBS. 5.--In respect to _who_ or _whom_, it sometimes makes little or no
difference to the sense, whether we take it as a demonstrative pronoun
equival