one judge of what others say
concerning them. Erroneous or inadequate views, confused or inconsistent
statements, are the peculiar property of those who advance them; they have,
in reality, no relationship to science itself, because they originate in
ignorance; but all science is knowledge--it is knowledge methodized. What
general rules are requisite for the syntactical parsing of the several
parts of speech in English, may be seen at once by any one who will
consider for a moment the usual construction of each. The correction of
false syntax, in its various forms, will require more--yes, five times as
many; but such of these as answer only the latter purpose, are, I think,
better reserved for notes under the principal rules. The doctrines which I
conceive most worthy to form the leading canons of our syntax, are those
which are expressed in the twenty-four rules above. If other authors
prefer more, or fewer, or different principles for their chief rules, I
must suppose, it is because they have studied the subject less. Biased, as
we may be, both by our knowledge and by our ignorance, it is easy for men
to differ respecting matters of _expediency_; but that clearness, order,
and consistency, are both _expedient_, and _requisite_, in didactic
compositions, is what none can doubt.

OBS. 7.--Those English grammarians who tell us, as above, that syntax is
divided into _parts_, or included under a certain number of _heads_, have
almost universally contradicted themselves by treating the subject without
any regard to such a division; and, at the same time, not a few have
somehow been led into the gross error of supposing broad principles of
concord or government where no such things exist. For example, they have
invented general RULES like these: "The adjective _agrees_ with its noun in
number, case, and gender."--_Bingham's English Gram._, p. 40.
"Interjections _govern_ the nominative case, and sometimes the objective:
as, '_O thou! alas me!_'"--_Ib._, p. 43. "Adjectives _agree_ with their
nouns in number."--_Wilbur and Livingston's Gram._, p. 22. "Participles
_agree_ with their nouns in number."--_Ib._, p. 23. "Every adjective
_agrees in number_ with some substantive expressed or understood."--
_Hiley's Gram._, Rule 8th, p. 77. "The article THE _agrees_ with nouns in
either number: as, _The wood, the woods_."--_Bucke's Classical Grammar of
the English Language_, p. 84. "O! oh! ah! _require_ the accusative case of
a pronoun