The English Language

in which they ought to be used. Now I cannot conceal from either my readers or myself the fact that philological criticism at the present moment is of an essentially {xv} historical character. It has been by working the historical method that all the great results both in general and special scholarship have been arrived at; and it is on historical investigation that the whole induction of modern philology rests. All beyond is à priori argument; and, according to many, à priori argument out of place. Now, this gives to the questions in philology, to questions concerning the phenomena of concord, government, &c. a subordinate character. It does so, however, improperly. Logic is in language what it is in reasoning,--a rule and standard. But in its application to reasoning and to language there is this difference. Whilst illogical reasoning, and illogical grammar are equally phenomena of the human mind, even as physical disease is a phenomenon of the human bo