The Doctrine of the Greek Article

employed as the appellation of a power, which disdains to act harmoniously and consistently with itself, and is impelled only by caprice. In the formation of language every thing indicates design tending to discoverable ends and in its actual application though there are some anomalies, they bear no proportion to the instances, in which the strictest regularity, the most undeviating uniformity, prevails. Of the Greek language these remarks are true in an especial degree: and there is some colour for the singular notion of Lord Monboddo, that this tongue was formed by grammarians and philosophers according to the rules of art. That some licence, indeed, in the use of the Article takes place in certain cases, it will be seen, that I have readily admitted: but even for this we shall frequently be able to account, nor is it ever such as to invalidate the general truth of my theory. With respect to those canons, which I have considered as most certain, I ought to state that they are confirmed not merely by the examples adduced, but by multitudes, which for several years past have occurred to my observation yet if a few untoward instances from unquestionable authorities can be cited against me, (and they have not been studiously suppressed) I must seek refuge in the remark of a distinguished Critic, that "when a rule has been established by ninety-nine examples out of a hundred, an ex"ception in the hundredth will not overturn it'."

1 Mr. Marsh's Letters to Mr. Travis, p. 257.

There are also Readers, who turn with disgust from every thing, which has the appearance of subtilty. I cannot deny, that the reasoning of my First Part may occasionally require a somewhat close attention: but the subject, if we would really understand it, seems not to admit the superficial treatment, which the taste of our day would unhappily introduce into science of almost every kind. To throw a veil of mystery over that, which in itself is plain and obvious, is indeed culpable: but more injury, I believe, arises to the human mind, from the attempt to make all knowledge popular: it is better that the frivolous should remain in ignorance, than that the thinking and inquisitive should not have their faculties duly exerted. If the subject which I have undertaken to discuss, has derived from my method of considering it an obscurity, which does not really belong to it, I regret the waste of my own labour, as well as that of the Reader's; but I am much more apprehensive of having failed in that acuteness of distinction, that logical precision, and that depth of research, without which inquiries of this nature cannot be prosecuted to their full extent.

The Second Part, accompanied throughout by the Greek Text, would have assumed the form of a new edition of the Greek Testament: I thought it better, however, to trust to the hope, that they, who were interested in the subject, would have the Greek Testament lying open before them, than to increase the bulk of the work by an appendage, which might justly be condemned as of no real use.