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NOTE A.- Page 2.

Extract from Comte's "Philosophie Positive." -Tome I. p. 35.

"Ils ont imaginé, dans ces derniers temps, de distinguer, par une subtilité fort singulière, deux sortes d'observations d'égale importance, l'une extérieure, l'autre intérieure, et dont la dernière est uniquement destinée à l'étude des phénomènes intellectuels. Ce n'est point ici le lieu d'entrer dans la discussion spéciale de ce sophisme fondamental. Je dois me borner à indiquer la considération principale qui prouve clairement que cette prétendue contemplation directe de l'esprit par lui-même est une pure illusion.

"On croyait, il y a encore peu de temps, avoir expliqué la vision, en disant que l'action lumineuse des corps détermine sur la rétine des tableaux représentatifs des formes et des couleurs extérieures. À cela les physiologistes ont objecté avec raison, que, si c'était comme images qu'agissaient les impressions lumineuses, il faudrait un autre œil pour les regarder. N'en est-il pas encore plus fortement de même dans le cas présent?

"Il est sensible, en effet, que, par une nécessité invincible, l'esprit humain peut observer directement tous les phénomènes, excepté les siens propres. Car, par qui serait faite l'observation? On conçoit, relativement aux phénomènes moraux, que l'homme puisse s'observer lui-même sous le rapport des passions qui l'animent, par cette raison anatomique, que les organes qui en sont le siége sont distincts de ceux destinés aux fonctions observatrices. Encore même que chacun ait eu occasion de faire sur lui de telles remarques, elles ne sauraient évidemment avoir jamais une grande importance scientifique, et le meilleur moyen de connaître les passions sera-t-il toujours de les observer

en dehors; car tout état de passion très-prononcé, c'est à dire précisement celui qu'il serait le plus essentiel d'examiner, est nécessairement incompatible avec l'état d'observation. Mais, quant à observer de la même manière les phénomènes intellectuels pendant qu'ils s'exécutent, il y a impossibilité manifeste. L'individu pensant ne saurait se partager en deux, dont l'un raisonnerait, tandis que l'autre regarderait raisonner. L'organe observé et l'organe observateur étant, dans ce cas, identiques, comment l'observation pourrait-elle avoir lieu?"

6

NOTE B.- Page 105.

Of the incapacity to write good English frequently manifested by eminent classical scholars, whether from sheer carelessness or want of specific training, the celebrated Dr. Bentley is an acknowledged instance; but I have never seen it remarked that his biographer, Dr. Monk, is open to the same criticism, although not, it may be, to an equal extent. For example, the learned biographer writes as follows: "These various pieces were entirely eclipsed by Middleton's Further Remarks,' in which it was generally conceived that he had obtained a complete victory over Bentley, and that the certain consequence would be the abandonment of his scheme of a new edition: and when it was found that the publication was suspended, the cause was universally attributed to the irrecoverable blow experienced from his adversary's publication." If this passage, which would certainly discredit a schoolboy, does not show any transplantation of classical idioms into English, it shows a carelessness of composition which could hardly have proceeded from a trained English scholar. It will be observed that by the construction of the sentence the "he" and the "his" ought to refer to the same person, which they do not,

a confusion of antecedents more easily made in English

than in Latin, which fortunately possesses more distinctive pronouns. By care and skill, nevertheless, the grammatical disadvantage in our idiom may always be remedied. The error of speaking of a cause being attributed to a blow, is rather logical than grammatical, and is a strange oversight in any one accustomed to the orderly arrangement of his thoughts, although it is not uncommon in the casual writings of uneducated men.

No reader needs to be told

that we attribute effects to causes, not causes to themselves. Dr. Monk meant, but failed to say, that the effect - the suspension of the publication was attributed to the blow as its cause. Even the expression "irrecoverable blow" is a solecism. The writer doubtless meant a blow from the consequences of which Bentley could not recover. We may say elliptically that a person recovers from a blow (meaning from the effects of the blow), not that he recovers a blow, and therefore we cannot speak of a "recoverable blow;" the nearest approach to it would be a "blow recoverable from," which, barbarous as it is, would be correct. A similar remark, by the way, (with no reference to Bentley or his biographer) may be made as to the word reliable, now creeping into use without its preposition. "Aid to be relied upon," or "reliable upon," is shortened into "reliable. aid." De Quincey, who charges Coleridge with the coinage of this word, suggests relyuponable as more correct English*; a form which few if any will be hardy enough to adopt.

But to return to Dr. Monk. These instances of bad writing in the biography, are not merely accidental. The same inaccuracy prevails more or less throughout. We are told farther on that Dean Hare "saw that the fruits of his own labour were at once driven out of the field," which, indeed, is perfectly grammatical; but as we cannot suppose any allusion to harvest-home to be intended, it is clearly a rhetorical lapse: and in another place we are informed

Critical Suggestions on Style and Rhetoric, p. 244.

that Dr. Voss "was then recently dead." On one occasion the author writes "it would have been impossible to have given;" on other occasions he misplaces such phrases as not only; and repeatedly confuses the sense of his periods with stray pronouns, unable, like lost children, to tell to whom or to what they belong. If it be objected that such errors in Bentley and Monk are not ascribable to the classical pursuits and proficiency of the writers, they must at all events be allowed to prove that a lame and incorrect English style is compatible with eminent attainments in the learned languages; and they proclaim a truth too often neglected, that accuracy and purity of composition in our native tongue, must be attained by the same means which secure excellence in other accomplishments- special devotion to the object- and will not come by attending to anything else. Modern English is too often disgracefully loose and inaccurate, partly perhaps from a foolish contempt of verbal criticism-a reaction from the age of Kames and Blair.

The reader who wishes to prosecute the subject, and to see how negligent English composition is, even in some of our first writers, may consult such works as "The Rise, Progress, and Present Structure of the English Language," by the Rev. Matthew Harrison; "Modern English Literature," by Henry H. Breen; and "A System of English Grammar," by C. W. Connon. The last-mentioned author, who is an acute critic and master of his subject, computes the grammatical errors in Hallam's "Introduction to the Literature of Europe," to be about five hundred; and those in Alison's "History of Europe" to amount to the prodigious number of about fifteen hundred.* Even such correct writers as Arnold and Macaulay furnish instances of careless composition in their best works. De Quincey roundly asserts that he had never seen the writer who had Grammar, p. 106.