could have valued his own meaning
enough to have made it intelligible;--that is, (to speak technically,)
enough to have made it a certain clew to his syntax. We can neither parse
nor correct what we do not understand. Did the writer mean, "Proper seasons
should be _allotted to_ retirement?"--or, "Proper _seasons for_ retirement
should be allotted?"--or, "Seasons _proper for_ retirement should be
alloted?" [sic--KTH] Every expression is incorrigibly bad, the meaning of
which cannot be known. Expression? Nay, expression it is not, but only a
mock utterance or an abortive attempt at expression.

OBS. 8.--Harris observes, in substance, though in other words, that almost
all the prepositions were originally formed to denote relations of place;
that this class of relations is primary, being that which natural bodies
maintain at all times one to an other; that in the continuity of place
these bodies form the universe, or visible whole; that we have some
prepositions to denote the _contiguous_ relation of bodies, and others for
the _detached_ relation; and that both have, by _degrees_, been extended
from local relations, to the relations of subjects incorporeal. He appears
also to assume, that, in such examples as the following,--"Caius _walketh
with_ a staff; "--"The statue _stood upon_ a pedestal;"--"The river _ran
over_ a sand;"--"He _is going_ to Turkey;"--"The sun _is risen_ above the
hills;"--"These figs _came from_ Turkey;"--the antecedent term of the
relation is not the verb, but the noun or pronoun before it. See _Hermes_,
pp. 266 and 267. Now the true antecedent is, unquestionably, that word
which, in the order of the sense, the preposition should immediately
follow: and a verb, a participle, or an adjective, may sustain this
relation, just as well as a substantive. "_The man spoke of colour_," does
not mean, "_The man of colour spoke_;" nor does, "_The member from Delaware
replied_," mean, "_The member replied from Delaware_"

OBS. 9.--To make this matter more clear, it may be proper to observe
further, that what I call the order of the sense, is not always that order
of the words which is fittest to express the sense of a whole period; and
that the true antecedent is that word to which the preposition, and its
object would naturally be subjoined, were there nothing to interfere with
such an arrangement. In practice it often happens, that the preposition and
its object cannot be placed immediately after the word on w