sible he should know what he is, and be _that_ he is?' Shakespeare.
'Gather the sequel by _that_ went before.' _Id._ In these examples,"
continues he, "_that_ is a relative; and is _exactly synonymous_ with
_what_. No one would contend that _that_ stands for itself and its
antecedent at the same time. The antecedent is omitted, _because it is
indefinite_, OR EASILY SUPPLIED."--_Butler's Practical Gram._, p. 52;
_Bullions's Analytical and Practical Gram._, p. 233. Converted at his
wisest age, by these false arguments, so as to renounce and gainsay the
doctrine taught almost universally, and hitherto spread industriously by
himself, in the words of Lennie, that, "_What_ is a compound relative,
including both the relative and the antecedent," Dr. Bullions now most
absurdly urges, that, "The truth is, _what_ is a _simple_ relative, having,
wherever used, _like all other relatives_, BUT ONE CASE; but * * * that it
always refers to a _general antecedent, omitted_, BUT EASILY SUPPLIED _by
the mind_," though "_not_ UNDERSTOOD, _in the ordinary sense_ of that
expression."--_Analyt. and Pract. Gram._ of 1849, p. 51. Accordingly,
though he differs from Butler about this matter of "_the ordinary sense_,"
he cites the foregoing suggestions of this author, with the following
compliment: "These remarks appear to me _just_, and _conclusive on this
point_."--_Ib._, p. 233. But there must, I think, be many to whon they will
appear far otherwise. These elliptical uses of _that_ are all of them bad
or questionable English; because, the ellipsis being such as may be
supplied in two or three different ways, the true construction is doubtful,
the true meaning not exactly determined by the words. It is quite as easy
and natural to take "_that_" to be here a demonstrative term, having the
relative _which_ understood after it, as to suppose it "a relative," with
an antecedent to be supplied before it. Since there would not be the same
uncertainty, if _what_ were in these cases substituted for _that_, it is
evident that the terms are _not_ "_exactly synonymous_;" but, even if they
were so, exact synonymy would not evince a sameness of construction.

[193] See this erroneous doctrine in Kirkham's Grammar, p. 112; in Wells's,
p. 74; in Sanborn's, p. 71, p. 96, and p. 177; in Cooper's, p. 38; in O. B.
Peirce's, p. 70. These writers show a great fondness for this complex mode
of parsing. But, in fact, no pronoun, not even the word _what_, has any
doubl