ness and negligence here that have troubled us hitherto. His definitions are wholly wanting in philosophical precision, and consequently, if strictly interpreted, are untrue. We find,. in part, the errors of his phonology introduced here, and, in part, his principles there rejected, here. For a single example, o in go, which had before been called an intermediate vowel sound, is here a simple vowel sound. His deductions from these definitions and principles, are of course, inaccurate and uncertain. We shall only instance a few of them; not because there are not many more, but simply because these will answer our purpose.

"From these principles," he says, p. 155, "it follows that simple syllables ending with vowels, always have their vowels long; but ending with a consonant or consonants, always have their vowels short." A simple syllable he had before defined to be one that "has but one simple vowel sound." To say nothing of the ambiguity with which the words "long" and "short" are here and elsewhere used, sometimes de noting mere quantity, sometimes indicating the kind of vowel sound,* both of the particular assertions contained in the remark above quoted, are untrue. In the first place, there is a multitude of words in the English language in which "simple syllables ending with vowels" are short. The i, thus, is short in such words as chariot, scrutiny, attitude. In the next place, simple syllables "ending with a consonant or consonants," do not "always have their vowels short;" as portion, danger, moonstruck, poorness, artist, wanting.

Of the particular rules which

We sometimes say, thus, that the a is long in war and short in quality, referring to the quantity merely of the vowel. We say, also, that a has its long sound in alias and its short sound in alibi, when we speak of the nature or kind of the vowel sound.

are given "for pronouncing vowel letters," "for representing vowel sounds," "for unaccented vowel sounds," "for representing consonant sounds," "for division of words," some appear to us to be correct, and some incorrect. As a system of rules, they show a want of skill in discriminating among the proper sounds of the letters, and a haste in generalizing. It would be tedious to examine them one by one. The most that we can say of any particular rule, is, it may be correct, it may be incorrect: the reader must satisfy himself by actual investigation. In other words, the rules are not a trustworthy guide to correct pronunciation. Many of the modes of pronouncing particular words, on which sometimes his rule is in part founded, we regard as discordant with correct usage, and to adopt them would justly subject one to the charge of vulgarity. It is for this reason, mainly, that we should deprecate the use of the book in our elementary schools. The "rules and reasons," even if committed to memory, so far as erroneous, might be corrected in riper years. The habits of pronouncing single words formed when young, would be likely to remain through life, with but partial correction from observation of accurate use.

*Such are merry and other words of that class in which, on pp. 74 and 155, the e is said to have the sound of the "long and slender" a as in fate, but on p. 159, the sound of a in care, both incorrectly; spirit pronounced sperit; yes, as if yis; early, &c. the ea as in heavy; haunch, &c. the au like a in &c. the au like a in care; draught as if draut; and a multitude of others. Some of these errors evince want of observation of best usage; others an undiscrimi

nating ear. Few pages in the book where orthoepy is treated of, are free from such blunders. An inability to distinguish the sound of the vowel in the last syllable in such words as breakfast, trespass, balance, giant, and successive pages of similar words, from the short u sound in but, evinces the want of an essential qualifi cation for writing a work on pronunciation.

his rule requires, nor of tory, torys, and so of other words of the same classes. Mr. C. gives str as a masculine termination. Prof. Latham cor. rectly regards it as originally a feminine affix as in songster, from Anglo-Saxon, sangëstre, a female sing er, sangere, a male singer.

We question the propriety of considering enunciate as a derivative from enounce ;-ock as a verbal ter mination denoting "intensive causation," as from "to jam, to jammock," the only example given;-the verbal termination le as a diminutive, as in prickle;--compendium, eulogium, and the like as derivatives from compend, eulogy;-dom, wick, &c. as forming "territorial possessives.' It might be expected, perhaps, that in the enumeration both of prefixes and of suffixes some might escape notice. Was it from doubt as to the

correctness of regarding rel, as in pickerel, a diminutive, and rd and oon, as in laggard and balloon, as augmentatives, that when such words were presented to the author in his "complete analysis" of the language, he chose to pass them by without enumeration? In a schoolbook many such omissions would be proper. But for the "man of science" for whom, in part, at least, this book is intended, completeness was desirable.

We forego farther notice of the etymological part of the book, and in conclusion, only express our joy at any evidence of an attention to English philology in our country; though we can not but earnestly hope that this work may not be considered a fair specimen of the state of that science among us.

INTUITIVE TRUTHS, or truths of Pure Reason, are those which lie at the foundation of all knowledgetruths to be assumed, not provedtruths which every body knows, or ought to know, without being taught -truths therefore about which there can be no dispute that does not imply fatuity or insanity, at least on one side of the argument.

Yet-and it is a signal lesson to the pride of human reason-there is nothing about which metaphysicians and schoolmen of all schools, Platonic, Aristotelian, Lockean, Kantean, Scotch, German, French, Transcendental, Common-Sense, Pyrrhonic and Eclectic,-have raised more doubts, and waged more controversies, than about these Intuitive Truths. The axioms of geometry have never been disputed by men or angels since first the great Geometer of the universe described in boundless space the diagram of his Vol. II.

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Who will

creation, and sent the spheres to roll and shine each in its own elliptic circuit. But though Plato preceded Euclid by a century, the axioms of that which calls itself philosophy are still to be adjusted. Adhuc sub judice lis est. tell us, then, that we live too late to make discoveries in philosophy? As Plato left room enough for Aristotle, and Aristotle for Plotinus, and Plotinus for the Schoolmen, and the Schoolmen for Des Cartes, and Des Cartes for Kant, and Kant for Hegel, and Hegel for the seers of the Dial; so there is room enough even now. Certainly there is no end as yet to progress in philosophy;-the only doubt is whether there is any beginning.

We have, in our day, been somewhat interested, at least as lookers on, in the strifes that have agitated the great empire of philosophy; and we have learned that inasmuch as

intuitive truths are of all propositions most certain, clear, and stable, the best way, and in many instances the shortest way of establishing a disputed proposition, is by introducing it as a squatter upon the domain of " pure reason," till by preemption or some other process it acquires a legal settlement and free hold in the category of intuitive truths. Thus in the controversy about "fate" and "free will," which has exercised the wits of metaphy. sicians in this apostate world for some thousands of years, and which the great poet tells us baffled the mightier powers of fallen angels ere this world was created,-the fatalist or necessitarian on the one side, and the free-willer on the other side, are insisting, and have been for centuries, each that his own dogma on that subject is not only true, but intuitively true-so true as to be unconsciously and necessarily assumed in all reasoning upon human actions-so palpably true that no man can doubt it without showing marks of insanity or idiocy, and none can gainsay it without contradicting his own words and thoughts, giving the lie to his own consciousness, and denying the very elements not only of all knowledge, but of his own intellectual and moral nature. The philosopher of the one party, when he makes out his catalogue of intuitive truths, gives a high place to the truth that in every act of choice there was in the chooser a full power to the contrary choice,-a power which in the same circumstances, and under precisely the same influences objective and subjective, might have chosen the other way. "The man that does not know this," quoth he, "does not know any thing; you can not begin to reason with him; put him into Bedlam." On the other hand, the philosopher of the opposite party, with equal confidence, assumes it, and insists upon it, as a constitutional cognition of the mind, an element in all reasoning upon

human actions, that choice is in ev ery instance determined by motives; and that, the state of mind immediately antecedent remaining the same, the choice could not be other than it was. He does not prove this-and indeed how can he?

otherwise than by taking it for granted, and showing that he who denies it is a numskull and has no right to believe any thing.

im.

There are many important dog. mas going up and down in the world that have but scanty prospects of obtaining permanently and generally the credit and authority demanded for them, unless they can in some way obtain a settlement among the intuitive truths. We can not speak particularly of the many dogmas, political, critical, historical, which, though they are of the greatest portance in the systems of thought to which they belong, are so incapable of proof that they must ulti mately be rejected and cast out as fallacies, unless they can be adopted into this privileged category; but we may put in a word in behalf of the great doctrine of apostolical suc cession. We suggest the question to the asserters of that doctrine, whether it would not be wise to make a bold push at once, and get rid of the troublesome demands for proof so pertinaciously urged on the part of "dissenters," by enrolling their great first principle among the independent and eternal verities of the "pure reason." Certainly this great dogma has one at least of the most striking characteristics of the truths commonly called intui tive;-it can not be proved by any argument into which it does not itself enter as an element. It is so essential to the entire system of thought with which it stands connected, that every attempt to prove it, which has any appearance of plausibility, is found upon analysis to involve as an inseparable princi ple of the argument an assumption of the very thing to be proved. If

then this dogma is a truth of any kind, it must surely be an intuitive truth. But to suppose that it is not a truth, is to subvert the entire system of "church principles" from the foundation,-a conclusion not to be admitted for a moment.

upon

As for the difficulty that this dog. ma of the apostolical succession is actually denied, and is most strenuously disputed against,-is there any thing in that which may not be got rid of? Intuitive truths are defined as truths which all men believe, and no man denies. They evidently depend then for their authority "catholic consent," for this is the very definition of Vincentius, Quod semper, ubique, ab omnibus; and "catholic consent," as is well known, takes no account of the opinions of "dissenters;" so that the catholic consent in behalf of any doctrine, is simply the consent of those who agree in holding it. Since then those who deny the doctrine of apostolical succession are all "dissenters" either in form or in heart, their denials and arguments are no more to be heeded than the notions of lunatics; and so, in spite of all that they can say or print, the doctrine may be assumed as an intuitive truth. Besides; though the propositions to which this name is applied are classified as undeniable and indisputable, there is not in the whole category one proposition so undeniable as the plain matter of fact that of all the truths in philosophy, none are more denied or more disputed about by philosophers them selves, than the very truths which are so confidently set up as impossible to be denied or disputed, except under the influence of insanity. If it is becoming very difficult in these days to say who is insane, it is becoming equally difficult to say who is not. If a philosopher mounts to the denial of some intuitive truth, he can be put down in the very height of his great argument' by telling him "Much learning doth

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make thee mad." Why then may not the "dissenter," who becomes so audacious as to dispute against apostolical succession, be put down by the cry of German neology,' which is only another name for "the very error of the moon?" Should it be objected that the "dissenters" are too many to be thus disposed of, it may be remembered on the other hand what hosts of the learned have formally denied many an intuitive truth well known as such. If all the philosophers of India and Arabia, of Greece and Alexandria, of the middle ages and of modern times, who have constructed their systems in bold defiance of intuitive truths, were assembled in one convention, the asylums of Utica and Worcester put together would not hold them; nor did the ancient cells of Bethlehem or St. Luke's ever echo with such jargon as they would utter.

We have been led into these remarks by the perusal of an essay on intuitive truths, or truths of pure reason, which a friend of ours more versed in such studies than we profess to be, has sent for publication. New Englanders, it is well known, even from ancient times, delight greatly in metaphysics; and they can read a disquisition on cause and effect, or on fate and free will, with the same gusto with which a Parisian reads a newspaper criticism on the last night's opera. For the gratification of the taste which enjoys this kind of light reading, we give place to the essay, though it is somewhat aside from the pursuits and topics in which we are just now more particularly interested. Our friend, we conjecture, intends to make a book, and desires the benefit of a little preparatory criticism of principles. Should any other of our friends be disposed to criticise the essay, we can not promise to publish the criticism, but will cheerfully forward it to the writer of the essay.