to its operation, all being excluded, except those which are significant of character. We are, therefore, to inquire what there is inherent in the excluded Nouns to cause so remarkable a difference. Now these Nouns must be either names of substances considered as substances, proper names, or names of abstract ideas: and the exceptions from the rule will be such as

1. Ο λίθος ΚΑΙ χρυσός.

2. ΤΟΝ Αλέξανδρον ΚΑΙ Φίλιππον. Ctes. § 81.

Æsch. cont.

3. ΤΗΝ ἀπειρίαν ΚΑΙ ἀπαιδευσίαν. Plato, vol. ΧΙ. p. 31.

The first sort of Nouns are names of substances considered as substances: for names of substances may be considered otherwise; and the distinction is important. They are otherwise considered, so often as the name supposes the substance, and expresses some attribute: so υἱός, ῥήτωρ, ἡγεμών, Soûλos, deσTÓτns, &c. are, indeed, so far names of substances, that they pre-suppose a substance, but their immediate use is to mark some attribute of the substance aveρwTos, which is in all of them understood: for to be υἱός, ρήτωρ, ήγεμών, &c. is no more of the essence of avepwTos than it is to be wise, happy, rich, &c. Such Nouns, therefore, as was before hinted, differ little in their nature from Adjectives: they are Adjectives of invariable application, being constantly used of aveρwros; whereas common Adjectives, ἀγαθός, μέλας, ὠκύς, &c. are applicable to substances of various kinds, and are not applied to any one in particular. It was, then, to be expected

of attributive Substantives, that any number of them coupled together might be predicated of an individual represented by a Pronoun; for it is to be remembered, that in such phrases as ὁ σύμβουλος καὶ ῥήτωρ, ὁ is no otherwise connected with ovußoulos, than in τὸν σιμὸν καὶ ἐξόφθαλμον, τὸν is connected with σιμόν: in all cases, to which the rule applies, the Article is a Pronoun representing some substance, of which the Attributives, whether Nouns, Adjectives or Participles, are predicated, and, consequently, is not the Article of the first Attributive, but of all collectively. This is sufficiently plain, where the Attributives are Adjectives or Participles, and will be equally plain in the remaining case, if the reader will advert to the nature of attributive Substantives rather than to their form. But suppose that, instead of these attributive Nouns, we introduce others, which express mere substances; this consequence will follow, (if we attempt to apply the rule,) that substances in their nature distinct and incompatible will be predicated of one individual: e. g. Xios kai Xpuros will both be assumed of o, the representative of some Noun understood: but this is evidently absurd; distinct real essences cannot be conceived to belong to the same thing; nor can distinct nominal essences, without manifest contradiction, be affirmed of it. Essence is single, peculiar and incommunicable; whereas the same attribute may belong to many objects, and the same object may possess divers attributes.

We are, however, to be cautious in determining that any Noun is expressive simply of substance.

F

There are many, which, though properly significant of substance, are yet frequently used to indicate the attribute or attributes, by which that substance is principally distinguished. Thus when Homer says, Π. Ν. 131. ἀσπὶς ἄρ ̓ ἀσπίδ' ἔρειδε, κόρυς κόρυν, ΑΝΕΡΑ ANHP, there can be no doubt that dump is as truly the name of a substance considered independently of all its attributes, as is ἀσπὶs or κόρυς: but when we read, Il. Z. 112.

ΑΝΕΡΕΣ ἐστέ, φίλοι, μνήσασθε δὲ θούριδος ἀλκῆς, the same word ȧvýp is evidently used, not as a Noun significant merely of substance, but as an Attributive; and an Adjective, the purest species of Attributive, would have answered the speaker's purpose: 'ANΔΡΕΙΟΙ ἐστέ, φίλοι, &c. though less figurative and poetical, certainly conveys the idea. In this instance, therefore, ávépes supposes the substance, and expresses a distinguishing attribute, viz. valour. Now since things animated have almost always some prominent character, some attribute, the operation of which unavoidably attracts notice, it will follow, that almost every Noun expressive of an animated substance, may be employed as an Attributive, and consequently that two or more of such, when the attributes referred to are not in their nature incompatible and contradictory, may be made subservient to the principle of the rule 1.

1 Nouns expressive of inanimate substances seem to have this difference, that though they have attributes (and we have no idea of any thing which has not) yet those attributes, from their inertness and quiescence, make so little impression on the observer, that he does not commonly abstract them from his idea of the substance, and still less does he lose sight of the substance, and use

its

The reason, why proper names are excepted, is evident at once: for it is impossible that John and Thomas, the names of two distinct persons, should be predicated of an individual. It is obvious, therefore, that in the phrase τὸν Ἀλέξανδρον καὶ Φίλιππον, τὸν is the Article of Αλέξανδρον only, and not of both names; as would happen, were the principle of the rule intended to apply.

Nouns, which are the names of abstract ideas, are also excluded, and from a cause not wholly dissimilar: for, as Locke has well observed, "Every "distinct abstract idea is a distinct essence; and "the names, that stand for such distinct ideas, are

the names of things essentially different?" It would, therefore, be as contradictory to assume that any quality represented by 'H were at once άreipia and áraidevoía, as that the same person were both Alexander and Philip: whence it is immediately evident, that such an assumption could not be intended. Under this head we may class Verbs in the Infinitive Mood, which differ not in their nature from the names of the corresponding abstract ideas. Thus we read in Plato, vol. xI. p. 43. ΤΩι ἰδεῖν τε ΚΑΙ ἀκοῦσαι ̇ in the next page we have TH ὄψει τε ΚΑΙ ἀκοῇ. The two cases evidently require the

its name as expressive of the attribute. Add to this, that to characterize persons by the names of things would be violent and unnatural, especially when two or more things wholly different in their natures are to be associated for the purpose: and to characterize any thing by the names of other things would be "confusion worse confounded."

? Essay, Book III. chap. III. § 14.

same explanation. Infinitive Moods so coupled together are extremely common.

Thus far it appears, then, that the limitations of the rule are not arbitrary, but necessary, and that the several kinds of excluded Nouns have one disqualifying property belonging to them all; which is, that no two of any class are in their nature predicable of the same individual; whilst attributive Nouns are such, that several of them may be assumed of the same person without any contradiction or falsehood.

But though, when Attributives coupled together are assumed of the same subject, the first only has the Article prefixed, will it be true conversely, that when the Article is prefixed to the first only of such Attributives, they are always assumed of the same subject? This is a very necessary inquiry. That the Subject is the same in the examples above adduced, is sufficiently evident; and there is not, I am persuaded, any ancient writer of Greek prose, from whom a multitude of similar passages might not be collected: still, however, if a sufficient number of unquestionable authorities could be produced, from which, the circumstances being precisely the same, a different conclusion might be drawn, that is, if in forms of expression exactly agreeing with 'O vios ΚΑΙ κληρονόμος the Attributives could be shewn to be intended of different persons, then the rule, whatever may be said respecting its principle, would not be of safe application.

Mr. Sharp, whose attention, however, appears to have been confined to the New Testament, has