The adjectives of some languages are subjected to va riations corresponding with the cases, numbers, and gen ders of the substantive noun., to which they are attached. These are terminations. If hey are extraneous with regard to the meaning of the adjective, and are merely convenient marks for dec;pmating, in complicated sentences, the noun with which each adjective corresponds. They served, in the Greek and Latin languages, to obviate that ambiguity NChiCh must have been the consequence of the inversions of the order of words which the miters of these languages, especially the pacts, perpetually practised. This circum stance, though merely accidental, has probably formed the ground on which grammarians have proceeded in calling ri the adjective a sort of noun. The declensions have given it a similarity of aspect to the substantive noun. The me taphy rical reason for adhering to this nomenclature as signed by i\ IF Tooke, that both equally contain the name cif an object, seems not to have occurred, and labours un der the disadvantage of applying also to other parts of speech.
. adjectives are subjected to variations, which in dicate a comparison of the degree in which a quality is to be attached to different objects. There are adjectives which do not admit of this variation, because there are qualities which do not admit of degrees. Such are some of those which denote figure ; as, " circular," " quadran gular," and " triangular." Adjectives subjected to de grecs of comparison are those which express qualities which admit of being more or less intense. No language is without separate words to signify comparison. But an expression or that act is so frequently required, that it has been found convenient to combine the sign of it with the adjective, in the form of a termination.
Three degrees have been enumerated ; the positive, the comparative, and the superlative. But the positive form is the simple state of the adjective, and should not be called a degree of comparison.
The comparative degree is formed, in Latin, by adding the syllables for to the radical letters of the simple ad jective ; the superlative by adding the syllables issimus ; as mitts, n:itior, mitissinucs ; in English, by adding the sylla bles '' er" and " est," as, " meek, meeker, meekest." When the euphony of our language does not admit of this mode of formation, the same thing is expressed by pre fixing to the simple adjective the adverbs " more" and " most." Several grammarians have described the mean ing of these degrees of comparison as consisting in this, that the comparative expresses a comparison betwixt two objects, i. e. a comparison of one with another one ; while the superlative expresses a comparison with many, i. e.
with the whole of a class. But we find that the compara tive degree may be employed for comparing an object with many others as well as with one ; as when we say, " He was wiser than all his teachers ;" " Charity is better than a thousand sacrifices." The superlative degree, in its turn, may be used when only two objects are compar ed, as," James is the wisest of the two." The difference betwixt these two sorts of expression, which should rather be called forms than degrees of comparison, is, that the comparative considers the subjects compared as belonging to different classes, while the superlative compares them as included in one. When we compare two men, if we oppose the one to the other, we use the comparative, and say " that he is taller than that other ;" but when we place the two together to form a group, and point out the su perior rank which one of them holds in this group, we say, o Ile is the tallest of the two." In like manner a comparison in which more than two are concerned may be expressed either by the compara tive or the superlative. The comparative is thus used when we say, " Greece was more por,hed than any other nation of antiquity." Here Greece is comsidered as not belonging to the class mentioned after the " more polished." For this purpose these nations are designated by the term other. Greece was none of those other nations ; it was more polished than they." The same idea is expressed by the superlative when the word other is left out ; " Greece was the most polished nation of anti 'pity." We here assign it the highest place in the class of objects airong which we number it,--the nations of antiquity. A similar option is left in conveying such sen timents as the following : " Mr Fox spoke more forcibly than any other member of the House ;" which may also be thus expressed, " Mr Fox spoke the most forcibly of all the members of the I louse." The comparative is indeed sometimes used instead of the superlative where there are only two in a group ; as when we say in Latin, senior fratrum, and in English, " the elder of the brothers ;" " the wiser or the taller of the two." The frequency with which the comparative form of the adjective is employed in comparing only two, has misled some technical grammarians to state it as a principle, that this is the only proper form where no more than two ob jects are concerned, even although they should be repre sented as belonging to the same collection or class. But, though habit has admitted some instances of this phraseo logy, it is an error to form such a rule, and it is injudi cious to check any tendency to use the superlative in its original application.