ve
shown, there is a very simple reason in the nature of the things.

35. But this reason, as well as many other truths equally important and
equally clear, our common grammarians, have, so far as I know, every man of
them, overlooked. Consequently, even when they were aiming at the right
thing, they frequently fell into gross errors of expression; and, what is
still more surprising, such errors have been entailed upon the very art of
grammar, and the art of authorship itself, by the prevalence of an absurd
notion, that modern writers on this subject can be meritorious authors
without originality. Hence many a school-boy is daily rehearsing from his
grammar-book what he might well be ashamed to have written. For example,
the following definition from Murray's grammar, is found in perhaps a dozen
other compends, all professing to teach the art of speaking and writing
with propriety: "_Number_ is the _consideration of an object_, as _one_ or
_more_." [70] Yet this short sentence, as I have before suggested, is a
fourfold solecism. _First_, the word "_number_" is wrong; because those
modifications of language, which distinguish unity and plurality, cannot be
jointly signified by it. _Secondly_, the word "_consideration_" is wrong;
because _number_ is not _consideration_, in any sense which can be put upon
the terms: _condition, constitution, configuration_, or any other word
beginning with _con_, would have done just as well. _Thirdly_, "the
consideration of _an_ object as _one_," is but idle waste of thought; for,
that one thing is one,--that _an_ object is _one_ object,--every child
knows by _intuition_, and not by "_consideration_." _Lastly_, to consider
"_an_ object as _more_" than one, is impossible; unless this admirable
definition lead us into a misconception in so plain a case! So much for the
art of "the grammatical definer."

36. Many other examples, equally faulty and equally common, might, be
quoted and criticised for the further proof and illustration of what I have
alleged. But the reader will perhaps judge the foregoing to be sufficient.
I have wished to be brief, and yet to give my arguments, and the neglected
facts upon which they rest, their proper force upon the mind. Against such
prejudices as may possibly arise from the authorship of rival publications,
or from any interest in the success of one book rather than of an other,
let both my judges and me be on our guard. I have intended to be fair; for
cap