ume the whole preposition as one _thing_; as, "All arguments
whatever are directed to prove one or other of these _three things: that_
something is true; _that_ it is morally right or fit; or _that_ it is
profitable and good."--_Blair's Rhet._, p. 318. Here each _that_ may be
parsed as connecting its own clause to the first clause in the sentence;
or, to the word _things_ with which the three clauses are in a sort of
apposition. If we conceive it to have no such connecting power, we must
make this too an exception.

[434] "Note. Then _and_ than are _distinct Particles_, but use hath made
the using of _then_ for _than_ after a Comparative Degree at least
_passable_. See _Butler's_ Eng. Gram. Index."--_Walker's Eng. Particles_,
Tenth Ed., 1691, p. 333.

[435] "When the relative _who_ follows the preposition _than_, it must be
used as in the _accusative_ case."--_Bucke's Gram._, p. 93. Dr. Priestley
seems to have imagined the word _than_ to be _always a preposition_; for he
contends against the common doctrine and practice respecting the case after
it: "It is, likewise, said, that the nominative case ought to follow the
_preposition than_; because the verb _to be_ is understood after it; As,
_You are taller than he_, and not _taller than him_; because at full
length, it would be, _You are taller than he is_; but since it is allowed,
that the oblique case should follow _prepositions_; and since the
comparative degree of an adjective, and the particle _than_ have,
certainly, between them, the force _of a preposition_, expressing the
relation of one word to another, _they ought to require the oblique case_
of the pronoun following."--_Priestley's Gram._, p. 105. If _than_ were a
preposition, this reasoning would certainly be right; but the Doctor begs
the question, by assuming that it _is_ a preposition. William Ward, an
other noted grammarian of the same age, supposes that, "ME _sapientior es_,
may be translated, _Thou art wiser_ THAN ME." He also, in the same place,
avers, that, "The best English Writers have considered _than_ as a Sign of
an oblique Case; as, 'She suffers more THAN ME.' Swift, i.e. more than I
suffer.

'Thou art a Girl as much brighter THAN HER,
As he was a Poet sublimer THAN ME.' Prior.

i.e. Thou art a Girl as much brighter _than she was_, as he was a Poet
sublimer _than I am_."--_Ward's Practical Gram._, p. 112. These examples of
the objective case after _than_, were justly regarded by Lowth