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any other tongue, follows the dictates of pure Nature. The mafculine pronoun he it applies always to males, or at least to persons (God and angels, for example) who in respect of dignity are conceived as males; the feminine she to females; and unlefs where the fiyle is figurative, the neuter it to things either not fufceptible of fex, or in which the fex is unknown. Befides, if we have recourse to the Latin syntax, the genuine fource of moft of our grammatical fcruples, we fhall find there an equal repugnancy to all the applications above rehearfed †,

BUT, to clear up this matter as much as poffible, I fhall recur to fome remarks of the laft mentioned critic, concerning the fignifications and the ufes of the neuter it. The pronoun " it," he tells us, "is fometimes employed to "exprefs; first, the fubject of any inquiry or "difcourfe; secondly, the state or condition of "any thing or perfon; thirdly, the thing, what"ever it be, that is the caufe of any effect or

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event, or any perfon confidered merely as a "cause, without regard to proper personality." In illustration of the third ufe, he quotes thefe words,

In Latin id fuit ille would be as grots a folecifim, as id fuit ezo, or ia fuit ves.

You heard her fay herself, it was not I–
'Twas I that killed her-*.

The obfervations of this author concerning the neuter pronoun, are, as far as they go, unexceptionable. He ought to have added to the word perfonality in the third ufe, the words gender or number. The example which he hath given, fhows that there is no more regard to gender, than to perfonality; and that there ought to be no more regard to number, than to either of the former, may be evinced from the confiderations following.

WHEN a perfonal pronoun must be used indefinitely, as in asking a queftion whereof the fubject is unknown, there is a neceffity of ufing one perfon for all the perfons, one gender for all the genders, and one number for both numbers. Now in English, cuftom hath configned to this indefinite ufe, the third perfon, the neuter gender, and the fingular number. Accordingly, in afking a question, nobody cenfures this ufe of the pronoun, as in the interrogation, Who is it? Yet by the answer it may be found to be I or he, cne or many. But whatever be the answer, if the

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queftion be proper, it is proper to begin the anfwer by expreffing the fubject of inquiry in the fame indefinite manner wherein it was expreffed in the queftion. The words it is are confequently pertinent here, whatever be the words which ought to follow, whether I or he, we or they *. Nay, this way of beginning the answer by the fame indefinite expreffion of the fubject that was ufed in the queftion, is the only method authorifed in the language, for connecting these two together, and showing that what is afferted, is an anfwer to the question afked. And if there be nothing faulty in the expreffion, when it is an answer to a question actually proposed, there can be no fault in it, where no queftion is propofed. For every answer, that is not a bare affent or denial, ought, independently of the question, to contain a propofition grammatically enunciated; and every affirmation or negation ought to be fo enunciated, as that it might be an answer to a queftion. Thus by a very fimple forites it can be proved, that if the pronoun it may be used indefinitely in one cafe, it may in every cafe. Nor is it poffible to conceive even the fhadow of a

* In this obfervation I find I have the concurrence of Dr. PrieAley.

reason,

reafon, why one number may not as well ferve indefinitely for both numbers, as one perfon for all the perfons, and one gender for all the genders.

THAT which hath made more writers fcrupulous about the firft of thefe applications than about the other two, is, I imagine, the appearance not of the pronoun, but of the fubftantive verb in the fingular adjoined to fome term in the plural. In order to avoid this fuppofed incongruity, the tranflators of the Bible have in one place ftumbled on a very uncouth expreffion. "Search the fcriptures, for in them ye think ye "have eternal life; and they are they which tef

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tify of me." In the other applications they have not hesitated to use the indefinite pronoun it, as in this expreffion: "It is I, be not a"fraid." Yet the phrafe they are they in the firft quotation, adopted to prevent the incongruous adjunction of the verb in the fingular, and the fubfequent noun or pronoun in the plural, is, I fufpect, no better English, than the phrafe I am I would have been in the fecond, by which they might have prevented the adjunction not lefs incongruous of the third perfon of the verb

John v. 39.

Kk 3

+ Matt. xiv. 27.

to

to the first personal pronoun. If there be any difference in respect of congruity, the former is the lefs incongruous of the two. The latter never occurs, but in fuch paffages as those above quoted; whereas nothing is commoner than to. ufe the fubftantive verb as a copula to two nouns differing in number; in which case it generally agrees with the firft. "His meat was locufts and "wild honey," is a fentence which I believe nobody ever fufpected to be ungrammatical. Now as every noun may be reprefented by a pronoun, what is grammatical in those, must, by parity of reafon, be grammatical in thefe alfo. Had the queftion been put, "What was his "meat?" the anfwer had undoubtedly been proper, "It was locufts and wild honey." And this is another argument which in my appre henfion is decifive.

BUT" this comes," as Dr. Lowth expreffeth himself in a fimilar cafe, "of forcing the Eng"lish under the rules of a foreign language, "with which it has little concernt. A convenient

* Matt. iii. 4.

+ The English hath little or no affinity in ftructure either to the Latin or to the Greek. It much more refembles the mo. dern European languages, especially the French. Accordingly

we

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